South Africa could face grid collapse “technical knockout” — expert

South Africa risks facing a “technical knockout” if the power grid collapses, where total blackouts will likely reoccur as the cause of the problem would not have been resolved before power is restored. This is according to Virtual Energy and Power director Clyde Mallinson, who explained that Eskom’s coal generation fleet is in such a bad state that less than 40% is operational. “If we look at the coal fleet only and take out the other things like the diesel, the dams, and the pumped storage, then less than 40% of the coal fleet is operational,” Mallinson said in an interview with 702. “That’s how dire it is at the moment.” Mallinson said if South Africa were pushed into permanent stage 6 load-shedding, it would almost be like a complete blackout. “I would argue that if we get to stage 6 permanently, it’s almost akin to having the grid go down,” he said. “Clearly, if the grid does go down, it’s very serious, but what worries me is that when the grid comes up again, nothing will have changed.” Mallinson used the term “technical knockout” (TKO) from boxing and mixed martial arts to describe what would happen if the grid collapsed. A TKO is where the referee ends a fight because a contestant cannot continue, even if they are conscious. “It’s like a technical knockout at the moment. If we get up, we’re just going to get knocked out again,” Mallinson said. During a media briefing on Monday, outgoing Eskom CEO André de Ruyter assured the state-owned power utility is doing everything possible to ensure it does not go beyond stage 8 load-shedding. “We do have contingency plans should there be a further loss in generation capacity. At this point in time, we do not anticipate that there is a risk of going beyond stage 8,” De Ruyter said. “I can give the country the assurance that we are doing everything in our power to ensure that we do not end up in a situation where we go beyond that.” However, Mallinson disagrees. Based on how the coal fleet was running in early January, he drew up a table working out what the maximum load-shedding would be each month based on the performance of the coal fleet. One could argue that the coal fleet’s performance has remained similar, with rotational power cuts peaking at stage 6 in January. “My table said that if the coal fleet is running more or less where it’s running at the moment, we’ll have stage 6 in January, we’ll have stage 7 in February, we’ll have stage 6 in March, and we’ll have stage 8 in April,” Mallinson said. “I’m afraid [that], in June or July, we could have as high as stage 11.” Mallinson emphasised that these aren’t predictions but projections of what could happen based on the performance of Eskom’s coal generation fleet. “It’s just saying, if the coal fleet is performing at a certain level, then this is the level of load-shedding we’ll have. I’m not predicting what the coal fleet will do,” he said. While his projection of reaching stage 7 in February hasn’t come to fruition yet, further breakdowns could see this come true with South Africa currently in continuous stage 6 load-shedding.