Following a brutal spherical of Stage 6 blackouts, South Africans can be pressed to think about how our energy scenario might get any worse. Well, because it seems, there are a variety of ‘doomsday scenarios’ that would play out – through either Stage 8, Stage 10, or Stage 15 load shedding.
Top Eskom officers have brazenly contemplated the opportunity of going past the worst-scheduled model of load shedding. Recently, an up to date ‘worst possible outcome’ was tabled. Here’s what you could know concerning the ultimate frontiers of Eskom’s irritating failures. Brace yourselves.
Stage 8 vs Stage 10 vs Stage 15 – and even a complete blackout: Your information to the darkest depths of load shedding…
What is Stage 8?
This is the one one in all Eskom’s varied ‘worst-case scenarios’ that truly has a transparent and concise definition, as per the utility’s personal load shedding steerage. At Stage 8, residents could possibly be subjected to a number of energy cuts. These would whole anyplace between 12 to 16 hours a day.
Eish. Stage 8 load shedding would take away an eye-watering 8 000 MW from the grid. This would cripple companies and convey the nation to a halt. The indisputable fact that Eskom have even entertained extra drastic outcomes than that is completely terrifying. But right here we’re…
What is Stage 10?
Earlier this 12 months, Jan Oberholzer – Eskom’s Chief Operating Officer – entertained the notion of Stage 10 energy cuts. The utterance left many observers dumbfounded, provided that there’s no official steerage for something that goes past the parameters of Stage 8.
When at Stage 4 in March 2022, Oberholzer prompt {that a} lack of diesel might power South Africa into an unprecedented spherical of Stage 7 outages. He then added that depleted dam ranges ‘could add another three stages on top of that’ – taking SA to STAGE 10. Yikes!
We by no means reached that time. But for the primary time, a senior Eskom official admitted that load shedding might go additional than something the agency has ready for. Which, basically, paved the way in which for Andre de Ruyter’s feedback on Wednesday night. Strap in, everbody.
What is Stage 15?
Eskom’s CEO acknowledged that, if SA doesn’t aggressively spend money on renewable power and relaxes its air high quality requirements, we may very well see Stage 15 load shedding. Although he admitted to ‘not knowing’ what that may seem like, he did muse {that a} failure to evolve might value 100 000 jobs.
Existing coal energy stations ‘do not meet minimum emission standards’. Due to this, the embattled energy utility is left with two choices. Either it spends about R300 billion to retrofit the ability stations with gear to scrub their emissions, or the models have to be decommissioned.
Worse than load shedding? Eskom describe ‘total blackout’…
For these of you who suppose Stage 15 load shedding is the underside of the barrel, you’d be sadly mistaken. Only a couple of weeks in the past, Eskom recognized their worst-case situation. In idea, the nation might go BEYOND load shedding. But this might imply getting into right into a ‘three-week long blackout’.
“If preventative measures like load shedding prove to be insufficient, the national grid will collapse. A blackout is unforeseen. Therefore, the system operator would not be able to make any announcements in advance.”
“A national blackout will have massive implications. For the whole country. Every effort is made to stop this from happening. Depending on the nature of the emergency, it could take a few weeks for the grid to completely recover from a blackout.” | Eskom assertion