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State-owned power utility on Tuesday warned that consumers can – in the best-case scenario – expect to soldier through 37 days of load shedding in the upcoming winter season and in the worst-case scenario expect to brave over 100 days of power cuts.

This comes after Eskom escalated load shedding to Stage 4 on Tuesday morning after reinstating the power cuts on Sunday evening.

Eskom’s chief executive for transmission Segomoco Scheepers said the only way to avoid the worst-case scenario was for the utility to contain its unplanned generation losses.

“At the last briefing I think we did give an indication that if we were able to contain the unplanned [breakdowns] below 12 500 megawatts, we should not have any load shedding.”

“Obviously today we are struggling to achieve the lower level of unplanned [breakdowns] that we desire, and it progressively increases to 37 days for winter and in the extreme could be as high as I think we had about 101 days. But that is clearly very far in the extreme,” said Scheepers.

 As it stands, the power utility says it currently has 5 124 MW of planned capacity out of maintenance and is experiencing unplanned breakdowns of 16 519 MW.

According to Eskom the recent intensification to stage 4 load shedding was necessitated by the failure of two generation units – one each at Tutuka and Majuba power stations, which tripped this morning. This adds to the units which had already tripped at Tutuka, Camden, Matla and Majuba power stations on Monday.

 Eskom hopes to see an end to this spate of load shedding tomorrow morning should the units it expects to return to service during the course of this week do so.

 “So, we will be in a better situation by about Thursday evening and Friday. We are hoping that we will reassess and see but we believe that the opportunity to stop load shedding will be there, certainly by Thursday evening, Friday morning,” generation executive Phillip Dukashe says.

 “Since Monday a unit each at Hendrina, Medupi, Tutuka, Arnot and two at Camden power stations have been returned to service,” said Eskom. The utility said the persistent rains seen in the country over the last week, as well as increased demand for power during the Easter break, contributed significantly to the latest round of power cuts.

 “We did not have as good an Easter weekend as we would have liked. The heavy rains did not assist. We have been experiencing at certain of our power stations issues with coal that has become too wet to handle. 

“So, when the coal is fit down the shoot into the boilers, it tends to cause blockages and it tends to stick and this has caused us to suffer some losses,” said Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter.

 The utility now looks to replenish its reserves capacity to ensure some units return to service and help stabilise the country’s power supply. – Moneyweb