EAF report explains why there hasn’t been load shedding
The Energy Availability Factor (EAF) report released by Eskom on a weekly basis shows why there has been no load shedding since 22 February as the EAF has held above 62%.
Although the EAF eased to 62.94% in the week ending 1 March from 63.85% in the previous week, it held above 62%, which seems to be the measure that allows Eskom to maintain power supply on a consistent basis.
The weekly report gives a daily analysis as well and that is even more encouraging.
This showed that the operating reserve margin between available capacity including non-commercial capacity, which are the units at the new power plants that are still in a testing phase, varied between 9.5% on Wednesday 26 February and 17.4% on Friday 28 February.
The average reserve margin for the week was 12.7%, which is not that far from the international benchmark of having a 15% reserve margin.
Unplanned outages remain high, which is why the Eskom media team in its daily notice keeps on saying that: “While we do not expect to implement loadshedding today, the possibility of loadshedding remains. We are currently utilising emergency generation reserves to supplement supply. The generation system remains constrained, vulnerable and unpredictable. Owing to the high unplanned outages or breakdowns, there is a possibility that we may have to implement loadshedding at short notice should there be an undesirable change in the generation system performance.”
Read the full story on: IOL.