What will happen in the event of a blackout?

Excerpt published with permission from Jonathan Ball publishers.

About the book
In 1998 the South African government was warned that the country was running out of electricity.

Despite the warnings, the decision was taken not to invest in new power stations.

Had the warnings been heeded, South Africa could have had a new power station up and running by 2006 and load shedding may never have happened.

Instead, in 2007, as predicted, South Africa ran out of electricity. Eight years later, the crisis has deepened and despite assurances to the contrary by government leadership, it has the potential to become the biggest post-apartheid crisis in South Africa.

By 2015 load shedding cost the South African economy an estimated R2 billion per day.

Is the situation getting better or worse? Are the interventions working or is a blackout inevitable? What can be done and what do future scenarios look like?

Blackout provides an insight into what’s happening to one of the greatest power utilities in the world.

It deals with everything from load shedding to blackouts and unpacks the issues raging around candlelight dinners in households across South Africa today.

Excerpt:

There can be no doubt about the seriousness of the electricity situation and the bad news is that things can still get much worse, if some worst-case scenarios play out.

Each scenario has the potential to have a catastrophic effect on the country, depending on how it is managed.

The good news is some of these scenarios may not happen.

The bad news? Some of them definitely will ? it’s just a question of when. So what scenarios should be looked out for?

Blackout

A blackout (or total grid collapse) is the very worst thing that could happen to South Africa in terms of electricity.

There is no worse scenario.

If a blackout should occur the impact would be enormous.

One scenario in the event of a severe and long-lasting blackout is a Koeberg nuclear plant meltdown. In the event of an extended countrywide blackout Koeberg would be a problem if the reactors were not kept cool.

Electricity is needed to keep the reactors cool, even in the event of a larger electricity grid collapse. In the event of a blackout, all available remaining power generation units, like diesel-run turbines that could be started up quickly, would have to be diverted to manage Koeberg’s reactors.

A meltdown at Koeberg would be the worst of the worst scenarios in the event of a long-running electricity grid collapse.

I do not believe this will ever happen as Koeberg is a very well-managed power plant with sufficient reliable backup power systems in place to manage all eventualities.
This does not mean however that the possibility can be ignored.

If a blackout hits the country, a massive economic recession becomes inevitable and with it comes the potential for severe nationwide unrest and riots that may turn very violent the longer the blackout continues.

Why?

Consider the fact that in the event of a blackout there will be no power in the country for weeks, if not months. If there is no electricity at all then a number of scenarios play out. For one, no one will be able to draw cash and it will not be possible to use credit card facilities or electronic payment facilities either.

So how will people buy food? Cell phones and internet won’t work once the batteries have run down. So how will people communicate?

Things may be okay for a few days, maybe a week. Beyond that there may be serious trouble.

In the event of a blackout, critical institutions like hospitals, clinics and laboratories will use generators while there is diesel fuel available. If there is a grid collapse, the longer it drags on, the more pressure there will be on these critical institutions to keep their facilities running.

Hospitals that have no generators or have inadequate backup systems will be hardest hit.

In the event of a problem at Koeberg, there may be an additional challenge in the Western Cape. In such a scenario, there may very quickly be no diesel available as fuel would have to be prioritised to run the OCGT plants to keep Koeberg from going into a meltdown.

In 2014 the country woke up to unexpected load shedding early on a Sunday morning. Every province’s disaster management department had been called by Eskom officials at around 9 pm on the Saturday before. This was to warn them about the pending load shedding and to allow them to make preparations like calling hospitals and checking generators.

Two insiders confirm that the only Disaster Management Centre to answer its phone that evening was the Western Cape Disaster Management Centre.

Accordingly it was the only province that was prepared for the load shedding the following day. This was an isolated incident but it should be a warning to provinces and leadership on disaster management preparation.

Provinces should be prepared for load shedding and even a full-on grid collapse. At the very least, critical institutions like hospitals, power stations and transport hubs must be checked and monitored for preparedness should power go out for an extended period. This includes ensuring that there are working generators and fuel tanks that are properly stocked at each institution.
And ensuring backup plans for refilling these tanks in the event of a crisis.

These are some of the very serious realities facing the country in the event of a blackout. Personally, I do not believe a blackout will happen, and Eskom agrees.

Load shedding, although annoying, is one of the most important measures to prevent a grid collapse, and this is how Eskom address pressure on the grid.

It is possible to prevent a blackout from happening by increasing the levels of load shedding.

While I do not expect a huge blackout, it would not be surprising if load shedding stages 1-4 were to be expanded significantly over the years to come. South Africans may yet experience load shedding as severe as 8?12 hours per day. This depends of course on a number of variables like plant construction timelines, involvement of IPPs and the future management of Eskom.

Until more power stations come online, there is no alternative to the scenario of increased load shedding.

This situation may be at its worst between 2016 and 2021, because Medupi and Kusile are both only expected to be fully operational by 2021. There is little new capacity coming online before then and the country is already experiencing regular bouts of load shedding today.

The only way this scenario can improve is if Eskom ups the levels of its plant availability. These levels have deteriorated over the past five years to an absolute bottom of 69.4% in January 2015.
By March 2015 the average availability for the year was 73%. Eskom’s plan is to increase availability to 80%.

The chances of being achieved remain very low, however, given the condition of the plant and a huge backlog in maintenance. Eskom estimates a tight system for two years with possibilities of load shedding, until Ingula is fully operational and the first unit of Kusile comes online in 2017.

The other uncertain factor is demand, which should pick up over the years to 2021.

It’s a Catch-22 situation. On one hand, low economic growth suits Eskom since demand for electricity is low. But continued low economic growth would be devastating for the country over the next 15 years.
Hence, the situation can only get more precarious if the economy manages to pick up.

Making matters slightly more pessimistic, if the correct investment and management decisions are not made very soon, I expect this scenario of increasing load shedding to continue well into the future, beyond 2021, even all the way to 2030.

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