Home

Site map

Profile

Southern Africa grid map

Key facts

Electricity:
from power station to customer

Organisational structure

Executive summary

Vision, values and
strategic objectives

Group five-year review

Downloads
Additional Information
Information Sheets

Keyword search

Information sheets

An analysis of the Electricity Crisis in South Africa

What solutions are being considered and implemented?

Eskom’s response to the current challenges was to ensure that the system was secure – i.e. that there was no impact on power system security and stability that would result in the entire country being blacked out. Emergency load shedding was introduced to immediately stabilise the system. After an extended period of emergency load shedding, and with the extended nature of the supply constraints, a National Electricity Emergency was declared. In addition, Eskom’s key industrial customers were engaged to implement a 10% load reduction. A formal National Electricity Response Plan was mobilised by the Department of Minerals and Energy (DME), the Department of Public Enterprises (DPE) and Eskom on 25 January 2008.

The plan for recovery was designed in three phases:

Phase 1 – System Security Recovery (ended 29 February 2008)

This phase focused on immediately achieving a 4 000MW reduction through:

Figure 5: The Recovery Approach

Reduction in load by 3 000MW – constituted a 10% load reduction in the key industrial customer base (1 200MW) and a 10% (1 800MW) reduction in the distribution and municipal commercial, industrial and residential large power user base.
Improving the supply side situation by regaining 1 000MW through the improved delivery of coal to increase stockpiles. Coal stockpile days were taken to an average of five days immediately, with the overall intent to achieve 20 days.
Reducing the technical load losses and unplanned outages.

NB: The load reduction from non-key industrial users was unfortunately not achieved.

Phase 2 – Power Rationing (ends 1 July 2008)

This phase involves the continued focus on the 3 000MW load reduction using power rationing mechanisms to enable consumers to strive for the required reductions. An additional initiative of scheduled load shedding was implemented on 1 April 2008 to ensure that the 3 000MW could be sustained. This was largely constituted by the 1 200MW key industrial customer reductions and a 1 000MW scheduled load shedding regime with the option of moving to 2 000MW if required. Scheduled load shedding was stopped on 1 May 2008. The savings initiative still continues.

Phase 3 – Power Conservation and other Supply Options (end 2012)

The Power Conservation Programme is intended to implement sustainable demand reductions through interventions such as accelerated demand side management. The supply side options that will be considered will be additional co-generation, return to service of previously mothballed generating plant, and doubling the current open cycle gas turbine capacity. Ultimately, the Power Conservation Phase will formalise the Power Rationing phase.


	Option	Option Status	Time to Implement	Comments
Demand	Accelerated Demand Side Management	Currently in progress	1-2 years	Focused on energy efficiency programmes (lighting, appliances, solar water heating, etc.) Target sectors include residential, industrial, commercial
	Power Conservation	Design stage	6 -12 months	Implementation of quotas, penalties and incentives to drive consumer behaviour in terms of conserving electricity
	Price signal	Under review	3 months	Price shocks that correct South Africa’s low electricity prices will drive consumer behaviour toward saving electricity
	Power Buy Back	On hold	2-3 years	Buy-back of energy intensive user businesses Most expensive option available
	Emergency Load Shedding	On hold, but can be used when needed	Immediate	Reduction in load when short-term constraints occur due to multiple plant failures or regional network failures (milliseconds to several hours).
	Scheduled (Pre-emptive) Load Shedding	On hold, but can be used when needed	Immediate	Reduction in load in a predictable approach which is of value to customers. It is more equitable than emergency load shedding as it shares the burden between all consumers.

Supply	Co-generation	Evaluation of offers	2-3 years	Cogeneration opportunities will provide additional capacity to the system over the next 2-3 years. It is expected that approximately 1 000MW of capacity will be commissioned.
	IPPs	In process	2-3 years	Commissioning of non-Eskom generation capacity.
	OCGT	Operational	Immediate	Eskom’s open cycle gas turbine stations are peaking plant designed to run optimally at 6% load factor. They can be used to run for longer periods, although the cost of running is high due to the fuel prices.
	Return to Service Plant	In progress	Immediate to 2 years	Re-commissioning of the Grootvlei, Camden and Komati coal-fired power stations. These power stations were previously decommissioned when there was excess capacity.
	Improved Generation Plant Performance	In progress	2-3 years	A focused generation plant performance improvement initiative is under way to systematically address the critical causes of plant failures. Processes to improve maintenance approaches are also being implemented.
	Increased Coal Stockpiles	In progress	1 year	Improvement of the coal stockpiles from 12 days system average in January 2008 to 20 days is under way.

Table 1 : Options being considered as part of the Recovery Plan

An analysis of the Electricity Crisis in South Africa

Back to top