According to an executive at South Africa’s state power utility Eskom, the country is experiencing its worst power crisis in history, and power outages may have to be increased to unprecedented levels this winter.
Scheduled power outages lasting more than ten hours a day are already a reality for many homes and businesses in Africa’s most industrialized economy, owing largely to frequent breakdowns in Eskom’s aging fleet of coal power plants.
People turning on their heaters in preparation for the upcoming winter are expected to widen the supply-demand gap.
According to Eskom’s Group Executive for Transmission, Segomoco Scheppers, this winter will be one of the most difficult in recent memory.
So far, Eskom has not implemented “Stage 6” power cuts, which would necessitate a 6,000 MW loss from the national grid. Scheppers has proposed that “Stage 8” be implemented this winter, which would imply shedding up to 8,000 megawatts or having blackouts for 16 hours out of every 32.
He explained that the power outages are required to prevent grid collapse and that “Stage 8” is just one scenario for which Eskom is planning if its interventions fail.
Scheppers described a blackout as “really a nightmare scenario” because of the chaos that would ensue if the entire country’s power suddenly went out. He continued, “the chances of that happening are slim.”
According to Eskom, power outages will reduce South Africa’s GDP by 5% in 2022.
