Out of the 312 days that have passed in 2023, South Africans have only enjoyed 12 days without load shedding as these planned power outages reach unprecedented levels in the country.
And with only 53 days left of this year, we can probably not expect to reach a total of 20 days with full 24-hour use of the electricity we pay for.
As of Wednesday November 8, the country has endured 300 days of load shedding, and by 7pm, this amounted to a total of 6,215 hours, according to data compiled by independent data publication specialist The Outlier and load shedding schedule app EskomSePush.
Eskom’s latest annual report, which covers the period from April 1, 2022 to March 31, 2023, states that, during this financial year, South Africans had experienced 280 days with load shedding. This is in comparison to the 2021/2022 financial year in which load shedding was implemented for 65 days during the same period (although the full year saw 205 days of load shedding).
The high levels of load shedding experienced this year is despite extensive use of open-cycle gas turbines (OCGTs), which is described as the simplest application of gas combustion for power/electricity generation.
Eskom’s “poor operational performance” was one of the reasons for the unprecedented levels of load shedding during the past year, and at huge cost to the economy, the report says.
Looking at 2023 to date, however, the data from The Outlier and EskomSePush, reveals that, of the 300 days the country has endured load shedding, Stage 6 was implemented on a total of 67 days.
The severity of load shedding this year can be truly understood when compared to the number of load shedding days in previous years.
NUMBER OF DAYS OF LOAD SHEDDING IN SOUTH AFRICA
– 2023 so far: 300 days
– 2022: 205 days
– 2021: 75 days
– 2020: 54 days
– 2019: 30 days
– 2018: 14 days
– 2017: 0 days
– 2016: 0 days
– 2015: 102 days
Not only has this year seen the highest number of days of load shedding since 2015, these power cuts have reached Stage 6 on more days than in previous years:
NUMBER OF DAYS LOAD SHEDDING REACHED STAGE 6
– 2023 so far: 67 days
– 2022: 18 days
– 2021: 0 days
– 2020: 0 days
– 2019: 1 day
– 2018: 0 days
– 2017: 0 days
– 2016: 0 days
– 2015: 0 days
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