During the national lockdown, Eskom has taken the opportunity offered by the lower demand to conduct critical, and much needed short term maintenance on power station infrastructure.

Eskom has doubled planned maintenance from the pre-lockdown levels of about 4 200MW to more than 9 000MW currently, which at some stage during the past three weeks rose to as high as 9 800MW.

That, together with the lower demand during the lockdown, has had the effect of reducing unplanned breakdowns to below 10 000MW.

Where there have been challenges when it comes to conducting the deep, philosophical maintenance of the biggest components of power stations, is due to the unavailability of the large components that require long lead times to be imported into South Africa and to get the equipment on site.

“Eskom is on track with its philosophical maintenance and we expect to continue with these kinds of refurbishments until around August 2021, as previously stated.”

Even though Eskom expects demand to rise significantly immediately after the lockdown to more or less the same levels ahead of the lockdown, which will put pressure on the infrastructure during the first few weeks after lockdown is lifted, they hope to be able to avoid load shedding.

There is, however, a modest risk of Stage 1 load shedding for a few days during July.

Information: Eskom Media Desk/Juanita Vogel, Communication & Stakeholder Management Practitioner (eMalahleni Zone)