Worst winter load shedding yet to come, warns energy analyst

The power utility warned on Sunday that it might have to implement stage 1 or stage 2 load shedding at short notice. 

The embattled power utility said the constrained power supply was caused by high breakdowns in generation units and high winter demand.

In a statement, the utility urged the public to reduce electricity usage.

Yellend says this is likely to continue throughout the winter months. 

“During the winter months when demands are higher than normal one can expect this. In fact, even in the summer months we can expect load shedding to continue as they do a lot of maintenance in the summer months.

“So there are more generation units taken out of service for planned maintenannce. I do believe in the winter months we are going to see regular announcements that we should reduce electricity usage. Eskom has been saying repeatedly that there is going to be a shortage of generation capacity for years,” says Yelland.

Yelland believes Eskom CEO André de Ruyter is doing his best to improve the situation at the power utility.

“I believe he is making very determined efforts on a number of fronts to stabilise the organisation in very difficult circumstances. One can be sure that he was not the cause of the currently load shedding but he is phased with the results of many  years of severe neglect of maintenances of overburdening and overrunning generation plants and putting them under a lot of pressure as well as putting them under a lot of pressure and the use of poor coal which resulted in the need for maintenance.

“ I think he is doing good work rooting out corruption and uncovering nepotism within Eskom.”

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