South Africans can expect lower stages of load shedding towards the end of the year and early 2024, Eskom has said.
The power utility’s acting group chief executive, Calib Cassim, speaking during a State of the System media briefing on Wednesday, said the state-owned entity forecast a lower Unplanned Capacity Loss Factor [UCLF] – or unplanned breakdowns – over the summer period.
However, Cassim warned that the power utility could not rule out load-shedding stages rising.
“Our base case of 14 500MW [UCLF] shows a maximum of Stage 4 load shedding in terms of the outlook.
“Does it mean we are saying that there’ll be no stage 6? No we are not saying that. If the unplanned outages increase to the outer scenarios of 17 500MW, then you would utilise Stage 6 to protect the integrity of the grid,” Cassim said.
He said the power utility believes that it can achieve a UCLF of 14 500MW in the coming months.
“In winter, the average UCLF was around 16 500MW. This outlook for summer is (…) 14 500MW,”.
He added that the outlook had improved because Eskom would bring 2000MW at Kusile back onto the grid.
Cassim apologised for the load shedding currently facing the country and the impact on GDP.
“But let’s also understand and appreciate that we implement load shedding to manage the system to avoid a blackout (grid collapse),” he said. – SAnews.gov.za
