The annual statistics on power generation in South Africa for the first half of 2022 (1 January 2022 to 30 June 2022) have been published in a report by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). This also includes data for loadshedding and national energy availability factor (EAF) up until 30 September 2022.
The statistics include all utility-scale generation technologies in the analysis. Technologies include coal, nuclear, hydro, solar photovoltaics (PV), onshore wind, concentrated solar power (CSP), pumped storage and diesel-fuelled open cycle gas turbines.
In the first half of 2022, the total system demand was similar to the year before, but still 3.0 TWh (2.5%) below the pre-lockdown levels of 2019. Coal still dominates the South African energy mix, providing more than 80% of the total system load. The contribution of renewable energy technologies (wind, solar PV and CSP) increased in 2022 to a total of 6.2 GW installed capacity and provided 6.5% of the total energy mix.
The Eskom fleet EAF continued its declining trend in 2022, with an average EAF of 59.4%, compared to the EAF of 61.7% for 2021 and 65% for 2020. This is largely due to the increase of unplanned outages (detailed by the unplanned capacity loss factor) experienced by Eskom. This year overtook 2021 as the most loadshedding-intensive year yet, concentrated in July and September.
The collective in the three months of July to September 2022 had more loadshedding in any year before. September 2022, the highest loadshedding month ever, on its own, had more loadshedding than the entirety of 2020. This year’s Stage 6 loadshedding has far surpassed 2019’s, the only other year that had Stage 6.
Click here to read the full report [pdf]