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South Africa: Eskom Forecasts More Dark Days in Winter While Urging the Government to Speed Up the Procurement of Power From Independent Producers

Eskom’s head of transmission, Segomoco Scheppers, said the power utility expects between 37 and 101 days of load-shedding during the winter season. But this depends on how much generation capacity Eskom will lose during winter.

Eskom has forecasted more load-shedding in the winter season, with the power utility saying there could be as many as 101 days of power outages — something that it calls an “extreme case” scenario.

The “best case” scenario (if there is such a thing regarding the major inconvenience of load-shedding) is that Eskom might throw South Africa into darkness for 32 days during winter.

Eskom proffered this forecast on Tuesday 19 April after it intensified load-shedding from stage two to four, citing further breakdowns and lost generation capacity at its old and creaking power stations.

In a briefing with journalists, Eskom’s head of transmission, Segomoco Scheppers, said the power utility expects between 37 and 101 days of load-shedding during the winter season. But this depends on how much generation capacity Eskom will lose during winter, which is a volatile period for the national grid because the power utility cannot keep up with the electricity demand from households and businesses.

Eskom has to contain unplanned breakdowns…

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