South African state-owned utility Eskom expects there to be reduced power outages in winter this year, limiting blackouts to 2.5 hours a day, although it continues to lean on diesel as a stopgap fuel over the country's abundant coal reserves.
Eskom chief executive Dan Marokane said the company's base case would expect 50 days of power cuts from April to August, and spending of about R8.8bn ($467mn) on diesel for its open-cycle gas turbines (OCGTs). Eskom expects to run OCGTs for the shortest possible durations during periods of high demand but says nothing about coal use or available grid capacity for its coal fleet.
Eskom said unplanned outages this winter will range from 14-15GW, with a maximum 17GW outage at stage 5 load shedding. The stages of load shedding imply the number of hours and times in a day when there will be no power. Of the eight stages, stage 1 means one power outage for 2.5 hours, while stage 8 means three power outages a day for 4.5 hours each.
South Africa has experienced record load shedding over the past two years, with Eskom drawing criticism for the unreliability of its coal fleet. Eskom frequently resorted to stage 6 blackouts last year, and was shedding about 6,000MW until February this year.
But it recently set a record of 30 consecutive days without load shedding, prompting speculation as to whether the sudden improvement is a vote-winning strategy ahead of general elections in the country on 29 May.
The ruling ANC party has come under scrutiny for the severe underperformance of public infrastructure, but electricity minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa stated that Eskom's recent performance has "nothing to do with elections".
Democratic Alliance shadow minister Mimmy Gondwe has said Eskom is using an unprecedented amount of diesel to keep the lights on, cutting into the budgets of other government schemes. The country has spent R64.78bn in the past five years on diesel, of which R44.63bn was spent in 2022-24 alone, public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan revealed in a recent parliamentary session. This raises questions over the state and usage of the country's coal plants, which make up the largest portion of Eskom's generating fleet.
Eskom's base-load generation capacity from coal-fired power stations is about 39GW. Its generation division has 15 coal-fired power stations with an installed capacity of 44.6GW.
