120 days without loadshedding

Last week South Africa passed a significant milestone: 120 days without loadshedding. With Spring around the corner Eskom is cruising towards the 150 day no-loadshedding mark with Megawatts to spare – a significant achievement in light of (pun intended) the dismal power supply performance of recent years.

The victory is deserving of praise and shows how a collective effort can overcome even the most seemingly intractable problems. As Eskom has pointed out, the last time South Africa experienced a similar load shedding reprieve was four years ago, for a period of 116 days which coincided with the first Covid lockdown. 

Last week Eskom achieved another notable milestone – an average Energy Availability Factor (EAF) of over 70% for over a week. It equates to 33 180MW of available generation capacity compared with 23 700MW in April last year. 

The unplanned outages figures are similarly impressive and indicative of a vast improvement since government put a team in place to address this crisis. Current unplanned outages are between 9 800MW and 12 400MW, significantly less than the anticipated winter level of 15 500MW.

The Cape Chamber is convinced that the resounding success of the national energy crisis committee is testament to a new era of stakeholder cooperation. Once again South Africa has pulled back from the brink, motivated by an instinct for self-preservation. It’s as if beneath our fractious diverse views and disagreements, our sometimes bitter contestation over values and world views, there lies a shared understanding that we are all in it together.

John Lawson
CEO of the Cape Chamber of Commerce and Industry