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Energy experts accuse Eskom of failing to provide South Africans with essential information about the performance and load shedding of its electrical system.
The power producer is also accused of deliberately misleading the public about the shedding and the stages it is implementing.
Over the past few weeks, four main complaints have emerged regarding the information that Eskom publicly provided:
- Eskom hides valuable information about power system performance from South Africans.
- Eskom’s load shedding stages do not match your load shedding data.
- Eskom is not playing open cards regarding the maintenance of its power plants.
- Eskom provides overly optimistic and inaccurate information on the outlook for load reduction.
These complaints are not new, but they rose again after the country experienced three weeks of cargo loss this winter.
It is valuable to analyze each of these allegations to see what Eskom is accused of and his comments on the matter.
Eskom hides valuable information about power system performance
Over the past few months, the Organization Undo Fiscal Abuse (OUTA) has tried to get Eskom to make information about the performance of its electrical system available to the public.
OUTA said Eskom initially delayed responding to their correspondence and later rejected their request.
On April 3, OUTA submitted a request in terms of the Promotion of Access to Information Law (PAIA) with Eskom.
They requested that a list of specific information on the performance of the power system be made available to the public.
Five months later, Eskom responded publish a new portal where South Africans can view system status and related data.
OUTA Energy Advisor, Chris Yelland said While it is a good start, it is a watered-down version of the information they requested.
He added that it is far inferior to the publicly available information provided by Eskom peers around the world.
OUTA, for example, requested an hourly data feed from Eskom. Instead, the power producer presented its own dashboard that is updated daily.
No zoom, pan, trend analysis, or data download functions are provided, and no information is available on Power Availability Factor (EAF).
There are also no correlation analysis facilities and the way the data is presented is rudimentary and does not conform to current IT best practices.
Eskom spokesperson Sikonathi Mantshantsha told MyBroadband that over time, and while the dashboard is being built, Eskom “will eventually be able to populate the dashboard with live data for public consumption.”
Eskom load shedding data
Energy adviser Ted Blom said Eskom “is falling very short” of supplying the South African economy with the electricity it needs.
In addition, it accused Eskom of deliberately misleading the public about the load shedding stages it is implementing.
He said Eskom dumped more than 5,000 MW on two consecutive days: Wednesday, September 2, and Thursday, September 3.
This, Blom said, is equivalent to implementing stage 6 load shedding, which Eskom did not disclose.
Eskom disputed Blom’s claims, saying that once you declare Stage 4 load shedding, you can ask any major industrial customer to reduce load by up to 20%.
“This equates to 1,200MW of demand that must be reduced by industrial customers as part of the authorized load restriction in terms,” Eskom spokesman Sikonathi Mantshantsha said.
“Load shedding is what Eskom throws out of the public, and that’s what Eskom announced in Stage 4.”
The table below shows the Mantshantsha load reduction information referred to by Blom.
| Eskom cargo shedding stages | |
| Stage | Meaning |
| Level 1 | Up to 1,000 MW of the national load to be shed |
| Stage 2 | Up to 2,000 MW of the national load to be shed |
| Stage 3 | Up to 3,000 MW of the national load to be shed |
| Stage 4 | Up to 4,000 MW of the national load to be shed |
| Stage 5 | Up to 5,000 MW of the national load to be shed |
| Stage 6 | Up to 6,000 MW of the national load to be shed |
| Stage 7 | Up to 7,000 MW of national load to be released |
| Stage 8 | Up to 8,000 MW of national load to be released |
| Eskom load reduction statistics | |
| Date | Load shedding |
| Wednesday | 5,359MW |
| Thursday | 5,642MW |
Eskom does not play open cards on maintenance
Blom is also accusing Eskom of not playing open cards regarding the maintenance of its power plants.
In April, Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter said the power company has been able to double short-term maintenance thanks to reduced demand during the shutdown.
De Ruyter previously told parliament that they would overhaul all Eskom generator sets within 12 months.
Blom said that neither the planned maintenance nor the overhaul of all Eskom gensets went as promised.
“Now it has changed the overhaul time to 24 months, but there is still no firm agreement with any of the OEMs it targeted in its reliability maintenance program,” Blom said.
He said Eskom doesn’t have the budget to recondition all Eskom generator sets as promised.
Blom further said that Eskom did not perform all of the maintenance it planned to do during the shutdown.
“In fact, maintenance during the shutdown was less because Eskom workers refused to be exposed to the environment and suppliers and logistics were closed,” he said.
“The CEO of Eskom never corrected this expectation and misrepresentation caused by his promise.”
Eskom provides overly optimistic load shedding information
In May, Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter said South Africans can only look forward to three days of stage 1 cargo shedding this winter, which should occur in late July.
It wasn’t long before De Ruyter was proven wrongand four months later, the country already had around three weeks of load reduction, often reaching stage 4.
Mantshantsha explained that De Ruyter’s claims were based on information they had at the time.
This points to inaccurate information provided to De Ruyter and corroborates claims that Eskom is underestimating the problems at the company.
This inaccurate statement, however, did not stop Mantshantsha from now claiming that “we are seeing the end of charge shedding” after 13 years of power outages.
Mantshantsha’s claim echoes Vice President David Mabuza’s recent statement that the introduction of the Medupi and Kusile power plants to the grid will help facilitate load shedding.
He added that the introduction of Independent Power Producers (IPP) will also help with the country’s power outages.
Experts, however, question claims that the load reduction will end soon and warn that things may get worse.
Researchers at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) said South Africa should prepare for exponential increases in load reduction until 2022 unless drastic measures are taken.
“Not only will the head loss continue for years to come, it will worsen significantly,” they said.
Energy analyst Chris Yelland echoed these views, saying the country urgently needs 6,000MW of new generation capacity over the next two to three years.
He said that unless South Africa launches bold and courageous decision policy initiatives, burden reduction is here to stay.
“The only way to stop charge shedding is to replace low-performance coal-fired power plants with reliable, low-cost wind, solar photovoltaic, battery storage and gas-to-power generation,” Yelland said.
He added that this new capacity acquisition will not come from Eskom, so legislative and policy changes are needed.
Cargo shedding this year
The following table provides an overview of load shedding in 2020.
| Load reduction in 2020 | ||
| Day | Date | Load shedding |
| one | 04-Jan-20 | Stage 2 |
| two | 05-Jan-20 | Stage 2 |
| 3 | 08-Jan-20 | Stage 2 |
| 4 | 09-Jan-20 | Stage 2 |
| 5 | 10-January-20 | Level 1 |
| 6 | Jan 30, 20 | Stage 2 |
| 7 | Jan 31, 20 | Stage 2 |
| 8 | 01-Feb-20 | Stage 2 |
| 9 | 02-Feb-20 | Stage 2 |
| 10 | 03-Feb-20 | Stage 2 |
| eleven | 04-Feb-20 | Stage 2 |
| 12 | 05-Feb-20 | Stage 2 |
| 13 | 06-Feb-20 | Stage 2 |
| 14 | 07-Feb-20 | Stage 2 |
| fifteen | 08-Feb-20 | Stage 2 |
| sixteen | 09-Feb-20 | Stage 2 |
| 17 | 10-Feb-20 | Level 1 |
| 18 | 11-Feb-20 | Level 1 |
| 19 | 14-Feb-20 | Stage 2 |
| twenty | 15-Feb-20 | Stage 3 |
| twenty-one | 20-Feb-20 | Stage 2 |
| 22 | 21-Feb-20 | Stage 2 |
| 2. 3 | 22-Feb-20 | Stage 2 |
| 24 | 09-mar-20 | Stage 2 |
| 25 | 10-mar-20 | Stage 4 |
| 26 | 11-mar-20 | Stage 4 |
| 27 | 12-mar-20 | Stage 4 |
| 28 | 13-mar-20 | Stage 3 |
| 29 | 14-mar-20 | Stage 2 |
| 30 | 10-July-20 | Stage 2 |
| 31 | Jul 11, 20 | Stage 2 |
| 32 | 12-July-20 | Stage 2 |
| 33 | July 13-20 | Stage 2 |
| 3. 4 | 14-July-20 | Stage 2 |
| 35 | 15-July-20 | Stage 2 |
| 36 | 16-July-20 | Level 1 |
| 37 | 13-August-20 | Stage 2 |
| 38 | 14-August-20 | Stage 2 |
| 39 | 18-August-20 | Stage 2 |
| 40 | 19-August-20 | Stage 2 |
| 41 | 20-August-20 | Stage 2 |
| 42 | 01-Sep-20 | Stage 2 |
| 43 | 02-Sep-20 | Stage 4 |
| 44 | 03-Sep-20 | Stage 4 |
| Four. Five | 04-Sep-20 | Stage 3 |
| 46 | 05-Sep-20 | Stage 2 |
| 47 | 06-Sep-20 | Stage 2 |
| 48 | 07-Sep-20 | Stage 2 |
| 49 | 08-Sep-20 | Level 1 |
Now Read: Now You Can View Eskom Energy Data Online
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