Severe Eskom load-shedding warning

Eskom’s latest load-shedding outlook revealed that the company expects severe load-shedding for the next year.

The outlook formed part of Eskom’s generation adequacy report, which provides a forecast of the “planned” level of load-shedding and the “likely” level of load-shedding for the next 52 weeks.

Eskom releases this report every week and the latest version paints the bleakest picture yet for the year ahead.

The power utility has increased expectations for megawatts (MW) lost to unplanned outages, which could help to explain why the outlook is so bleak.

It shows that it is likely that there will be a shortfall greater than 2,000MW of electricity per day for the next 52 weeks.

This means that Eskom expects there to be greater than stage 2 load-shedding every week for the next year.

The table below shows Eskom’s load-shedding outlook for the year ahead. The bar on the far right shows the likely level of load-shedding for that week.

• Green: Adequate supply to meet demand.
• Yellow: Electricity shortfall of less than 1,000MW, meaning load-shedding may need to be implemented.
• Orange: Electricity shortfall of between more than 1,000MW and less than 2,000MW, which means level 1 load-shedding will need to be implemented.
• Red: Electricity shortfall of greater than 2,000MW meaning at least stage 2 load-shedding must be implemented.

Worst load-shedding forecast ever

The latest generation adequacy report is more pessimistic than any previous report.

Daily Investor checked every adequacy report for the last two years to confirm this was the worst report on record.

Here are the reports from different periods over the last two years.

Last week

Last week, the adequacy report claimed there was likely to be an electricity shortfall of between 1,000MW and 2,000MW, which would be equal to level 1 load-shedding in 22 of the 52 weeks forecast. 

Three weeks in the last forecast were expected to be load-shedding-free.

Six months ago

Here is a report from October 2022 that found it likely that there would be greater than level 2 load-shedding days on all but seven days.

One year ago

Here is the report from exactly one year ago, in late March 2022, where only four weeks were likely to have stage 1 load-shedding.

18 months ago

There was a more favourable forecast 18 months ago. In the October 2021 report, the adequacy report forecasted four load-shedding-free weeks. 32 weeks were expected to have below stage 2 load-shedding. 22 weeks were forecast to have stage 2 or above load-shedding.

Two years ago

The report from two years ago in March of 2021 shows that there were 20 weeks in the year where level 2 or greater load-shedding was deemed likely.