Ramokgopa celebrates 5-year load-shedding milestone, but warns, ‘we are not out of the woods yet’

Eskom spent R8.51 billion between 1 April and 19 December this year on power generation, approximately R16.06 billion or 67.7% less than the R24.32 billion spent during the same period last year, according to Electricity and Energy Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa.

Giving an overview of the power utility’s performance this year, Ramokgopa told a media briefing on Monday that South Africa had recorded 272 straight days without  load-shedding — the longest stretch of uninterrupted power supply in five years — but cautioned that the country had not yet put the rolling blackouts permanently behind it.

“We are within touching distance of the resolution of load-shedding but we are not necessarily out of the woods,” he said.

“Even though we’re seeing the kind of phenomenal performance that we’re seeing, it is important that we continue to fix our eyes on the bouncing ball, and that bouncing ball is to ensure that we end load-shedding, and then in the long term, to ensure that we are able to provide the sufficient head space for the South African economy to grow.”

“We want to make it just an abnormal conversation for us to even have a discussion about 272 days of no load shedding … It’s an expectation that there shouldn’t be load-shedding in a most industrialised economy such as ours.”

He said the country would bring on stream different types of technologies “to ensure that we are able to achieve … our decarbonisation ambitions”, noting that 80% of South Africa’s generation capacity still comes from fossil fuels.

“We’ve got a responsibility that we are able to address issues of air quality, which has got significant health implications for those people who are living within the immediate proximity … of these power stations,” he said.

“We also have a responsibility to ensure that we reduce the CO₂ (carbon dioxide) emissions as part of that global agenda of addressing the scourge of climate change.”

Ramokgopa said another key milestone for Eskom was that the utility had been able to reduce its unplanned capacity loss factor (UCLF) — essentially, the degree to which its units fail on their own and cannot perform efficiently.

“The intention there is to bring down that number. Once you bring down that number of the UCLF it means then we have more megawatts on the grid… This time last year, we were sitting at about 33.1% UCLF, now we’re sitting at 24.9 UCLF. What that means is that we’ve got generating capacity on the grid, and it’s as a result of the sterling work that the team has been able to achieve.”

He said the energy availability factor (EAF) — the efficiency of the performance of the grid in its totality — had averaged 62.55% from 1 April to 19 December, an improvement from about 55.24% last year.

“As a result of this performance, we have been able to save about R16.06 billion just from stopping us from burning diesel,” Ramokgopa said.

“This is significant, because once we are able to reduce the cost associated with diesel, it means that Eskom is becoming a more efficient generator of electricity …  If we are able to sustain this over a period of time … we’re able to pass all this benefit to the end consumer.”

“Our ambition for the EAF for the financial year 2025 (is that) we want to achieve 70%,” he said, stating that this would be achieved through new generation capacity and the recovery of some units at Eskom’s power stations that have been out.

“70% EAF is not an arbitrary number. It’s a number that is derived from … engineering science … We know that we have the skills to get it to that level, and that’s the level of confidence that we have.

Ramokgopa said one of the targets for next year would be a revised strategy to ensure that South Africa achieves its goal of providing universal access to electricity by 2030, adding that it was unacceptable that after “30 years of a democratic government, we have not achieved universal access”.