by Roger Lilley, Energize

Responding to calls for declaring South Africa’s electricity supply situation to be declared a “disaster”, Pravin Gordhan, the minister responsible for Eskom, said: “There should be a distinction between a state of disaster for ‘dramatic effect’ compared to a power system emergency which falls within the purview of the system’s operator. At all times the main imperative is to avoid the total collapse of the grid as occurred in California and more recently in Texas, US. Eskom manages the stability of the grid with load-shedding as a key mechanism to mitigate against collapse. There is no requirement for Eskom or government to declare such an emergency,”.

By comparison, Eskom’s CEO, Andre de Ruyter, says that periods without power cannot be the new normal: “We should not accept load shedding and the lack of generation capacity as the new normal. While it has been going on for 14 years, we need to take urgent steps to address load shedding.”

Apologising to the country for the inconvenience, De Ruyter said the power utility doesn’t take the blackouts lightly. That’s because he and his management team understand the enormous damage load shedding does and has already done to the economy, causing economic hardship and an increase in unemployment for many – especially the poor.

“We have been trying to minimise the impact on national life by restricting the hours during which load-shedding is implemented. We appreciate that load-shedding remains a huge inconvenience and we again extend our apologies. I can give you the assurance that my executives and I are seized with the matter, and we are working hard to resolve the issues that are outstanding,” De Ruyter said.

It's very disappointing that the minister chooses to defend the government’s decision not to deal decisively with load shedding – especially now as the energy availability factor (EAF) has fallen – for the first time ever – to 55% (80% is the international norm).

EAF is the amount of power available compared to the total installed capacity, expressed in percent.

In South Africa, Eskom owns about 45 000 MW of generating capacity. There is a further 6000 MW (approximately) of capacity from IPPs supplied to Eskom.

The average load is about 30 000 MW, yet the power utility says it needs a further 4000 to 6000 MW to prevent load shedding and give it “space” to take unreliable plant offline for major repairs or final decommissioning.

Records show that Eskom’s EAF has been decreasing every year since 2017.

It is impossible to reconcile the government’s hopes for economic growth and job creation while it fails to take seriously the single biggest factor preventing its success: the lack of affordable, reliable electricity.

The minister’s comments show his ignorance of the seriousness of the situation and undermines any confidence one might have had in his suitability in this portfolio.