South Africa’s energy producer Eskom has of today (15 August 2024) had zero national planned power outages, locally known as Load-shedding, for a period of 141 days. More good news is that this has resulted in 9.59 billion rand ($532 million) saving in diesel expenditure, previously used in the generation of emergency power via Eskom’s Open-Cycle Gas Turbines (OCGTs) during the previous financial year. There has been no load-shedding since the beginning of Eskom’s current financial year, which commenced on 01 April 2024.
The last time South Africa experienced over four months of zero power outages was over four years ago, in March 2020 to July 2020, when load-shedding was suspended for 116 days.
Eskom has managed to maintain an average Energy Availability Factor (EAF) of 68% over a seven day period at the end of July, the highest EAF rate since July 2021, with some Power generating units hitting an EAF of over 70%. These included Medupi, Majuba, Matla, Lethabo and Kusile power stations.
Eskom’s operational efficiency has been above its winter assumptions, with current unplanned outages averaging between 9 800MW and 12 400MW since 01 April 2024 – the start of Eskom’s Financial Year (FY) 2025.
Performance Highlights -Reduction in unplanned outages
- The Unplanned Capacity Loss Factor (UCLF) continues to be on a downward trend at 25.99% for the financial year to date (01 April 2024 to 08 August 2024), improving from 34.78% in the corresponding period last year.
- This reduction in UCLF represents an ~ 8.8% improvement in the current financial year (01 April 2024 to 08 August 2024) compared to the same period last year.
- The unplanned outages of the generation units averaged 10 508MW during the past 7 days (as of 9 August) compared to 15 605MW in the corresponding week last year.
Consumer and Business Pain Point
Consumers and businesses, are however facing ever increasing power charges with an expectation of an over 30% increase that has been applied for by Eskom, to the South African energy regulator, for their next financial year period.
Eskom’s aggregate standard tariffs have increased at almost 15 percent per year since 2010, compared to average CPI inflation of about 5.2 percent over this period. Eskom’s current tariff plans imply that average electricity prices will have increased by 5.5 times its 2010 level by 2024/25, compared to expected consumer prices around 2.1 times its 2010 by 2024/25.
This excludes additional charges and inflation charged by local municipalities, and this, together with production interrupting outages, has systematically strangled the SA economy over the past 10 years.
Few businesses and private individuals are able to afford alternative energy supply via solar or other “off-the-grid solutions, but many have been forced to do so to maintain continuity of power supply.
The South African economy has stalled and unemployment rates are through the roof and the country will be holding its breath in the hope that Eskom has turned the power outage corner and that prices can start resuming a downward trend.
