Cape Town - It is no secret that load shedding has become the not-so-new normal, but the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research’s (CSIR) annual statistics report on power generation in South Africa for 2022 has revealed alarming insight into what South Africans have had to endure during the past year.
The report by CSIR Energy Centre principal researcher Warrick Pierce and senior researcher Monique le Roux shows that not only was 2022 the worst year of load shedding in South African history but that it was the first year that most of the load shedding was in Stage 4, not Stage 2.
Pierce said: “This year overtook 2021 as the most intensive load shedding year yet, more than four times more, also far exceeding 2019’s stage 6 load shedding.
“The collective load shedding experienced in the three months from July to September 2022 was more than in any year before. December 2022, on its own, had more load shedding than in any year before.”
The report also showed that the Eskom fleet Energy Availability Factor (EAF) continued its declining trend in 2022, with an average EAF of 58.1%, compared to the EAF of 61.7% for 2021 and 65% for 2020 – this was largely due to the increase of unplanned outages.
Le Roux, a senior energy researcher at the CSIR, said that at the current trajectory, it remained unlikely that load shedding would end any time soon, and it was, therefore, in businesses’ best interest to try to protect themselves against load shedding and higher stages of load shedding – if it was possible for them to do so.
“The most feasible and cost-effective options available to the South African market probably remain solar PV and battery installations with gas for heating,” Le Roux said.
With Eskom set to miss its EAF target of 60% in its coal fleet next month, as part of the Eskom board’s key recovery strategy to reduce load shedding intensity by 2025, things continued to look dim for South Africa.
Energy expert Ted Blom said in he absence of a detailed recovery plan, with a committed budget and contracted original equipment manufacturer suppliers, any recovery ambitions of the board was just pie in the sky.
kristin.engel@inl.co.za