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Finance minister Enoch Godongwana says that South Africa will be able to call load shedding a ‘thing of the past’ within the next 12-18 months. Experts disagree.
Speaking to Reuters at the World Economic Forum (WEF), the minister said that stage 6 load shedding would ease within roughly five months in line with new measures and the revamping of power plants taking effect.
An emergency plan drawn up by president Cyril Ramaphosa and the National Energy Crisis Committee on Monday (16 January) also pins its hopes on ending at least the worst of the load shedding crisis by the end of the year.
However, South Africans will be forgiven for getting a lingering sense of déjà vu, as these assurances echo many similar promises made by the national government over the last few years.
From former president Jacob Zuma all the way to utterances this week, the government has promised, time and time again, that an end to load shedding is in sight.
One of the most notable promises for an end to load shedding was made on 2 September 2015, when Ramaphosa – then deputy president and in charge of the Eskom energy ‘war room’ – told the nation that load shedding would be behind the country in “18 months to two years” (ie, by the end of 2017).
“In eighteen months to two years, you will forget that the challenges we had in relation to power or energy or Eskom ever existed,” Ramaphosa said at the time.
More than five years after load shedding was supposed to be a thing of the past, rolling blackouts are not only still very much in existence, but have become part of daily life in South Africa – ripping through the economy, taking out businesses, jobs and quality of life in its wake.
And even now, with the minister’s latest comments in tow, experts, analysts and economists expect things to get worse.
Godongwana’s current belief of a speedy recovery from load shedding echoes that of the energy minister Gwede Mantashe who told eNCA earlier this past week (14 January) that Eskom can be fixed within the next six to 12 months.
“Do we have the capacity, technically, to deal with the crisis? If not, can we go out and look for that capacity? It will be a very complex problem…It will take us six to 12 months to sort the issue if we pay attention to the issue,” said Mantashe.
These claims stand in stark contrast to what experts in the field anticipate. Energy expert Chris Yelland said that these claims of a swift end to load shedding are misleading to the public and not possible by the cash-strapped Eskom, reported Daily Investor.
Load shedding is tied to Eskom’s energy availability factor (EAF) – a measure (percentage) of time the power station fleet was available for use when it was needed. The new Eskom board is aiming for the EAF to sit at 75%; once it surpasses 70%, load shedding is expected to be a thing of the past.
Energy regulator Nersa, meanwhile, has set a smaller target for Eskom to hit an EAF of 65% – but even this target is clouded in doubt.
Yelland said that contrary to the lofty targets, Eskom’s energy factor has actually been on a downward trend over the past five years and is barely able to hold above 50%.
The issue is a lot of Eskom’s fleet needs to be maintained or fixed while they produce power, which is not possible; stations need to be put offline to be fixed.
“To increase Eskom’s EAF, there must first be a slowdown. It then has to bottom out, stabilise, and start to rise. This process will take several years,” Yelland said.
“It is mathematically impossible for this to happen in the 2023/2024 or 2024/2025 financial years.”
The graph below, provided by DailybInvestor, illustrates the decline in Eskom’s EAF from 2016 to 2022:
Without the current generating units able to be taken offline for repairs, the only other alternative is to add more capacity to the grid – but even this is falling short, with bid windows 5 and 6 for Independent Power Producers effectively failing, leaving huge shortfalls in additional planned capacity.
Read: Ramaphosa’s emergency plan to end load shedding – including new laws