Are we in for a dark December? 'We can't be blind to reality' - energy analyst

Lester Kiewit speaks to Chris Yelland, Energy Analyst and Managing Director at EE Business Intelligence.

(Listen to the interview in the audio below)

In the last few days, we had stage 6 load shedding as Eskom tried to get reserve levels back up at its pumped storage and Open Cycle Gas Turbine power stations.

However, some people have been experiencing up to 10 hours without electricity which is in line with stage 8 load shedding.

This raises the question of whether Eskom is misleading us on how bad the situation is.

Yelland says that if you look at current data, the severity of load shedding has doubled over the last 11 months when compared to 2022.

I don’t want to say we are in for a dark and bleak December. I don’t want to be overly pessimistic, but I don’t think we should be blind to realities.

Chris Yelland, Energy Analyst

Picture: Pixabay.com

He adds that as frustrating as it might be, we need to have high levels of loadshedding to have the maintenance we need, as there is no spare generation capacity.