Eskom’s official three-month outlook for demand and generating capacity shows a high likelihood of load-shedding every single week until mid-April.
In fact, for six of the coming 13 weeks, it forecasts that it will be between 1 000 megawatts and 2 000MW short to meet its reserve margin and possibly demand.
Using the assumption of a total of 12 000MW of breakdowns, its “planned risk” level is effectively guaranteeing some load shedding in these weeks.
In the second week of February, the worst of the coming 13 weeks, it is forecast to be at least 2000MW short to meet demand.
Chief executive Andre de Ruyter has been clear that he intends to break this cycle, as this is the only way that Eskom’s fleet reliability will improve over time.
At this stage, the amount of planned maintenance over the next three months remains at the level it forecast in the first week of January.
Moneyweb will monitor this closely for any changes.
