On the back of its first load-shedding event in over six years, Eskom has warned the system will remain constrained, saying on Friday that the risk of “emergency conditions” developing would remain well into April, owing to high levels of planned maintenance over the coming months.

In fact, outgoing CEO Brian Dames warned that the system would remain “tight” until a number of the units from the Medupi and Kusile power projects were introduced, “not only the first unit at Medupi”.

In other words, the constraints would continue “for the next few years” until the group’s power station build programme was completed.

“From a planning perspective, the unplanned outages are expected to reduce as we go into winter, but planning is consistently in the ‘red’, which makes us extremely vulnerable to any unforeseen events,” the utility cautioned.

The supply shortfall would be exacerbated as the 900 MW Koeberg unit 2 was scheduled to come out of service for planned maintenance in the third week of March.

“With the projected demand and current trends in plant performance, extensive and expensive use of open-cycle gas turbines is anticipated, resulting in limited operating reserves to deal with volatility in demand or generation performance.

“We call on all customers, particularly the municipalities and the commercial sectors, to manage and cut out all electricity wastage,” it noted, adding that the industrial and commercial sector could make “significant” contributions, particularly in large office blocks and shopping centres.

Dames acknowledged the inconvenience associated with the recent rotational load-shedding episode, while chairperson Zola Tsotsi said he hoped load shedding would be eliminated from Eskom’s vocabulary entirely.

“As Eskom we need to really apologise to all South Africans for the inconvenience caused by what has happened,” Dames said.

He gave the assurance that Eskom employees were “working extremely hard” to avoid a repeat of March 6, when unplanned outages swelled to around 10 000 MW, as four units at Kendal were shut and other power stations also experienced losses as a result of wet coal conditions.