Eskom load shedding city power

The silhouette of the evening electricity transmission pylon. Power transmission from a power plant to a city. Image: Archive Photo

Eskom: Three factors which could cause load shedding this week

Eskom believe that they will avoid load shedding this week. But they haven’t ruled it out completely, and a few variables could put SA back in the dark.

Eskom load shedding city power

The silhouette of the evening electricity transmission pylon. Power transmission from a power plant to a city. Image: Archive Photo

Eskom have, rather triumphantly, announced that they expect to avoid load shedding on Monday. On a similar note, we’d also like to announce that writers for thesouthafrican will be publishing articles today: The utility are merely fulfilling their mandate, but that hasn’t stopped them from celebrating their “achievement”.

A statement issued on Monday confirmed that Eskom do not expect to implement power cuts for the rest of the day, with the weekly forecast also looking good. But outages are still at an abnormal frequency, and the firm is running on its emergency reserves. They may be keen to present a more competent version of their operations to the public, but Eskom still remain on the brink of blackouts – all will do for the next 18 months.

Load shedding forecast for Monday 24 February 2020

Eskom’s optimism is based on a few things going their way. But the utility remains fragile and susceptible to changes. Although they are in control of the situation at the moment, they have also conceded that a swing in the opposite direction could put us back to square one: Load shedding could return if…

…There is a failure to return generational units to service: Eskom are banking on units at Kriel, Medupi, Majuba and Tutuka coming back online today. Any hiccups here could strain the emergency reserves and push the firm right back into panic mode.

…We have major change in performance: With more than 11 000MW of power still offline, Eskom are above the threshold which triggers emergency protocols (9 500MW). The grid has already been described as “unreliable and unpredictable” by the state-owned company on Monday morning. There is no room for error.

…The public fail to use electricity sparingly: Now, this really only comes into play if one of the first two scenarios take place. Eskom have pleaded with South Africans to only use electricity when absolutely necessary. But if the grid becomes vulnerable, and old habits die hard, load shedding surfaces once more.

You can read the full statement from Eskom here: