Question NW2201 to the Minister of Public Enterprises

Reply:

1. The Minister, Department Officials, Eskom Board of Directors, Eskom Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Management meet on a regular basis to discuss Generation performance challenges and plans to improve the performance. The Eskom’s worst-case scenario is assumption of unplanned unavailability between 13 500 MW and 15 000 MW for winter and between 14 500 MW and 16 000 MW for summer, this shows that 104 days of loadshedding could be expected in 2022 winter and 191 days of loadshedding could be expected in the 2022/23 summer. These result in total of the 295 days of load shedding. The Generational Recovery Plan (including Maintenance Recovery Programme) has been implemented to improve Generation performance. Eskom has been implementing defects correction mechanism plan to improve Energy Availability Factor (EAF) at Medupi and Kusile power stations. Eskom will require additional capacity of between 4 000MW to 6 00MW to minimise load shedding.

2. The explanation given by the Eskom CEO has been sufficient that the CEO and Management know what they are doing in turning around Generation performance. I have got confidence of Eskom CEO and management to turnaround Eskom’s Generation Performance and reduce loadshedding that is affecting our economy.

At the same time, the board, management and staff are being directed to make energetic and urgent efforts to avert as much load shedding as possible- recognising the deleterious effect it has on households and businesses.

Additional Information for the Minister

Eskom never plans to loadshed. The System Operator (SO) evaluates the adequacy of the power system at the beginning of each season (1 April – 31 August for winter and 1 September – 31 March for summer) based on the maintenance requirements of the generation fleet, the anticipated demand from the customers and the unplanned breakdowns of generators. The capacity unavailable due to breakdowns, is highly volatile and uncertain, leading the SO to resort to scenario planning based on the range of unplanned unavailability of generation capacity.

For the 2022 winter, the SO determined that the unplanned unavailability of generation capacity would be in the range of 12 000 MW – 15 000 MW based on a trend analysis of the previous five years performance. For the 2022/23 summer, this range is between 13 000 MW – 16 000 MW (subject to review in August 2022).

This was broken down into three scenarios which were further analysed:

• The optimistic scenario: with unplanned unavailability below 12 000 MW for winter and below 13 000 MW for summer, this illustrates those 0 days of loadshedding would be expected in winter 2022, while 16 days of loadshedding could be expected in summer 2022/23.

• The realistic scenario: with unplanned unavailability between 12 000 MW and 13 500 MW for winter and between 13 000 MW and 14 500 MW for summer, this shows that 37 days of loadshedding could be expected in 2022 winter and 132 days of loadshedding could be expected in summer 2022/23.

• The extreme scenario: with unplanned unavailability between 13 500 MW and 15 000 MW for winter and between 14 500 MW and 16 000 MW for summer, this shows that 104 days of loadshedding could be expected in the 2022 winter and 191 days of loadshedding could be expected in the 2022/23 summer. This is the total of the 295 days referred to.

The unplanned unavailability varies dynamically in time with variances in excess of 4 000 MW in a single week being common. To achieve 295 days of loadshedding in summer and winter combined, the unplanned unavailability would need to remain at 15 000 MW for every hour of winter and at 16 000 MW for every hour of summer for the 12-month period, and that is unlikely.