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POWER CRISIS

Ramokgopa explains why we hit Stage 6 and sticks to Ramaphosa's 'end of load shedding' claim

In a stunning turn of events, Eskom announced Stage 6 load shedding just days after President Cyril Ramaphosa assured the nation that the end of load shedding was in sight, leading to questions of accountability and a rather convenient coincidence. However, Eskom claims that the escalation was due to unforeseen maintenance issues and not a political move. Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa insists that load shedding has decreased overall and promises a significant reduction in the coming days, urging South Africans to judge for themselves.
Ramokgopa explains why we hit Stage 6 and sticks to Ramaphosa's 'end of load shedding' claim Illustratiave image, from left: Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa; An Eskom coal-fired power station. (Photos: Gallo Images / Brenton Geach | Waldo Swiegers / Bloomberg via Getty Images) | Flickr | Adobe Stock)
Julia Evans
By Julia Evans
11 Feb 2024
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On Thursday night, mere hours after President Cyril Ramaphosa announced during the State of the Nation Address (Sona) that the government was “confident that the worst is behind us and the end of load shedding is finally within reach”, Eskom announced that load shedding would be ramped up to Stage 3 due to the need to replenish pumped storage dams.

Things escalated from there, and Ekom announced Stage 6 load shedding in the early hours of Saturday morning — mainly attributed to the power utility losing nine generating units, amounting to 4,400 megawatts of power, due to boiler tube leaks. 

At a media briefing on Sunday, Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa repeatedly clarified to the media that despite the escalated levels of load shedding, the President was correct and South Africa was getting closer to the end of load shedding. 

Daily Maverick reported that Ramaphosa said in his Sona that thanks to a major debt relief package enabling Eskom to make investments in maintenance and transmission infrastructure and SA’s continuing renewable energy programme, the end of load shedding was near.

A calculated risk

“There is nothing new that the President has said,” Ramokgopa said on Sunday, adding that load shedding had decreased over the past few months. 

He said part of Eskom’s summer plan was to ramp up planned maintenance during the warmer months when there was lower energy demand. 

However, with this plan came the risk of not having a “buffer” to fall back on when there were unplanned outages.

Ramokgopa said this was why load shedding reached Stage 6 at the end of November.

“But for the remainder of November we have outperformed the curve, which is why the President is saying we have light at the end of the tunnel,” Ramokgopa said.

“We’ve taken a calculated risk, and I have said to the country, in the effort to resolve load shedding we are not going to cut any corners. There’s a price you pay for ensuring you do things the right way.”

However, he said, Stage 6 and Stage 5 were outliers and “should not be something we’re accustomed to”.

Eskom announced on Sunday that it had managed to successfully replenish its pumped storage dam levels over the previous two days and had brought some generation units back online, resulting in the reduction of load shedding to Stage 5 from midday on Sunday.

Ramokgopa said at the briefing that Eskom had already bought two of the nine units taken offline for boiler issues back online, restoring 1,000MW, and that it expected to bring the remaining units online by Wednesday.

By Tuesday, Ramokgopa said, there would be a significant reduction in load shedding, “going back to levels 4, 3, 2 and 1 and also periodically not having load shedding, starting Wednesday.”

Eskom agreed, saying that its power station general managers and their teams were working to ensure that the remaining 3,200MW were returned to service by Wednesday evening. 

Challenge to Ramaphosa and Ramokgopa

Engineering News’ Terence Creamer asked during the media briefing, “What accountability does the minister intend to take for the extreme credibility crisis and embarrassment this has now caused for the President and government as a whole?” 

Ramokgopa responded: “Yes the President is correct, so I really don’t understand what is meant by embarrassment — [it’s] a coincidence that immediately after that [Sona] delivery, then the risk materialises.”

In response to journalists querying whether Eskom’s escalation of load shedding soon after the Sona was politically motivated, Bheki Nxumalo, the group executive for generation at Eskom, said he was glad he had the opportunity to clarify this.

Nxumalo said that at 6.30pm on Thursday, maintenance staff detected a risk at Unit 3 at Medupi — which provides 800MW — and decided to shut it down to ensure the safety of employees.

“That is independent of what was happening with the statement the President was making; even the minister was not aware of what was happening [at the time],” Nxumalo said.

Soon after this, a second unit at Medupi tripped, causing Eskom to lose 1,600MW of power in six hours at one of its biggest stations, and escalating load shedding.

‘See for yourself’

“The numbers are there … all you have to ask yourself is: are the number of hours my lights are on in a day the same or lower than the comparable period in the previous year? And the answer is in the affirmative,” Ramokgopa said. 

He said the power situation would improve because three units from Kusile Power Station had come back online, and the Treasury had made money available to Eskom. In addition, a significant proportion of units on planned maintenance were expected to come back online towards the end of March, as well as Unit 4 from Medupi and Unit 6 from Kusile.

“The end of load shedding is within reach,” said Ramokgopa. “So don’t believe me, don’t believe the President, just do your own analysis.”

Renewables not performing

Ramokgopa said Eskom had not been receiving power from solar PV and wind generators because of climatic conditions, which had also contributed to escalated load shedding. 

“This must not subtract from the fact that we must continue on this path of greening, but it’s just a common appreciation that renewables thrive on the redundancy of baseload, and that’s why baseload is key to ensure that we are able to protect the performance of the economy, to ensure that we don’t interrupt life going into the future,” Ramokgopa said.

But energy expert and engineer Chris Yelland told Daily Maverick, “What is needed to complement the variability of wind and solar PV is not nuclear or coal-fired ‘baseload’ power, nor unreliable, unpredictable and intermittent coal-fired power.

“What is needed is flexible generation that can be ramped up and down quickly on command from the system operator. This takes the form of battery energy storage, pumped energy storage and/or gas-to-power operating as peaking and balancing plant, (ie, operating at low capacity factor, and low gas usage), not as mid-merit or ‘baseload’ capacity.” DM

Comments (10)

malcolmwilson.nc Feb 12, 2024, 03:34 PM

Do you even believe these idiots!

Ken Barker Feb 12, 2024, 03:40 PM

What’s involved with replacing boiler tubes. Does the furnace have to cool down? How many tubes would a 600 MW boiler have? Would all the tubes be replaced or just the ones that have burnt through? What would be the normal life of a set of boiler tubes?

Joe Irwin Feb 12, 2024, 05:26 PM

Excellent questions, but don't expect an answer. For instance if 2 or 3 boiler tubes fail and are repaired, you can bet your last rand, that the others will start leaking shortly after the operation is restarted

John Cawood Feb 12, 2024, 06:07 PM

Answering your questions - /about 2 days before you can put people in a chunk of metal that was running 700 degrees just a few hours before/then install skyclimbers for inspection/find the leak and the many others caused by the first leak cutting other tubes while you wait for permission to shut down/cut out if you can reach it, cut your way in and weld your way out if it is a burner mouth or sootblower aperture corner/then inspect, replace, fit weld, inspect/ pressure test/replace insulation/spend another 2 days and half a million bucks in fuel oil to get the thing hot enough to run again/boiler tubes have a 40 to 50 year life if not overheated by sleepy operators or scoured thin by high ash from crappy coal or torn apart from clinkers due to crappy coal. Think that covers it . . .

Ken Barker Feb 12, 2024, 10:40 PM

Many Thanks. Asan old oil field hand it is just interesting to try any quantify the issue. Given your info it would seem statistically unlikely to have ten units go down in 48 hours particularly given the life expectancy of the tubes. And the repair time is significant.

John Cawood Feb 12, 2024, 06:11 PM

Oh and number of furnace tubes alone is around 2000, welded together at the ribs and about 90m long each. Not counting superheater, reheater and economiser tubes which would probably double the number.

Rae Earl Feb 12, 2024, 04:28 PM

The Medupi and Kusile plants are brand new in terms of their operating hours since coming on-line. So, what's the excuse? I know with absolute certainty that if I buy a new car tomorrow it will give me many thousands of kilometres over 5 or 6 years without any major problems. I also know that if something major broke, it would be replace on the turn. Did they use second hand parts to build Medupi and Kusile or are they simply so stupid they don't know how to run them correctly without breaking things?

Con Tester Feb 12, 2024, 08:28 PM

They used too many second-hand people to design and engineer those plants (to which ignominious list one can add Ingula PSS), people who had a second hand, an open one, under the table, demanding that it be filled. That's why those projects are (1) severely late, (2) severely over budget, and (3) severely failure-prone. It's the usual mélange of ANC incompetence, greed, lethargy, and narcissism at bottom, of course.

Gerrie Pretorius Feb 12, 2024, 08:41 PM

Are these boiler tubes also parts installed by Hitachi under the auspices of the anc’s chancellor house?

This Is Us Feb 12, 2024, 08:51 PM

I also think loadsheding will end soon. Once the grid collapse, you can't implement any form of loadsheding.

Benevolence ZA Feb 12, 2024, 11:14 PM

Isn’t this what De Ruyter was saying about maintenance? That Eskom is an old horse. Why should we give this Minister of Darkness a benefit of doubt. He came with big promises and media blitz. Eskom has humbled him. Now he’s playing with words like “worst of loadshedding is behind us” without giving commitments

takandella@gmail.com Feb 13, 2024, 06:12 AM

Nonsense! This is election play, Mark my words, very soon, the power will stay on, at what cost to the country?? And then, boom, once they won again, it will be back, probably worse. And to boot, "ju mal" promises grants from 350 to 6000 depending on your education. Ha ha ha.

Sipho Dlamini Feb 13, 2024, 11:50 AM

We shouldn't be so cynical. There are a number of factors suggesting they are speaking the truth. Clearly the baseload is now installed, now they need to install enough buffer to allow for failures and downtime. Although they don't seem to be expanding the generation capacity fast, people are reducing their consumption fast by installing a lot of rooftop solar. A lot of people I know are partially or completely off grid, load shedding doesn't affect them. So we are closer than we think, as they are telling us.

Con Tester Feb 13, 2024, 03:15 PM

Right, so the powers-that-be are (probably) telling the truth about the end of rolling blackouts being near, not because they are dealing effectively with the actual problems (which, it’s worth noting, they themselves created in the first place), but rather they are right because people are making their own provisions such as rooftop solar to cover periods when the power is cut. Gosh, what a laughably disingenuous argument! It is a rare treat indeed for its intellectual vacuity. And all the more so in view of the fact that those self-same powers-that-be (1) first imposed a ridiculously low ceiling on private power generation capacity, a ceiling that was only recently lifted, (2) seriously mooted legislation that would allow the taxation of home power generation into virtual nullity, and (3) have put such inordinately onerous obstacles in the path of any sizeable private power generation initiatives as to be effectively prohibitive. The cynicism is all on their side, methinks.

Confucious Says Feb 13, 2024, 03:54 PM

I cannot believe that I have just read (actually I can) that the anc's Sylvia Lucas has just said that load shedding isn't the end of the world!!! WTAF!?!?!?!?! Clearly there's no electricity in her brain either!

regalhcv@icloud.com Feb 13, 2024, 04:23 PM

"are the number of hours my lights are on in a day the same or lower than the comparable period in the previous year?" My lights are not on in the day. And not on at night either, because we are "temporarily without power due to planed not supplying you with power" intervals.

Rae Earl Feb 16, 2024, 08:38 AM

When you make bad decisions and screw everything up it gets referred to as "calculated risk". What utter crap. These people have no idea how to maintain and run either our power stations or the country. Don't treat us like imbeciles Ramakgopa. And Ramaphosa is now shouting that his administration is enabling solar heating to help remedy the situation. Every time this man opens his mouth these days he spews utter garbage. His administration had nothing to do solar power which his inept henchman Mantashe fought against it tooth and nail. Private businesses and households are responsible for solar and other green sources of energy. Ramaphosa, like Ramakgopa, treats us like idiots and this is beginning to anger people at all levels.