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Load shedding: Eskom grid under ‘cardiac arrest’
Eskom has depleted its reserve capacity, and said 'load shedding is the prudent step to take to prevent a national blackout.'
Eskom Load shedding: “We have the system equivalent of a cardiac arrest” Image: Ruslan Danyliuk (123RF.com)
Eskom executives said the power utility lost a total of 13,461 MW in unplanned outages since Friday, and that load shedding is necessary to prevent a national blackout.
“We had the system equivalent of a cardiac arrest, and load shedding is the prudent step to take to prevent a national blackout,” Eskom CEO Andre De Ruyter.
Load shedding presser briefing
Eskom ‘disappointed’
The power utility’s executives admitted it once again underestimated the planned maintenance demands. During the state of the system briefing last week, Eskom executives were optimistic about their progress.
They had also predicted there would be a ‘significant dent in the load shedding by September 2021’.
“We are disappointed we could not make more of a dent. A lot of the planned maintenance did not meet our expectations, and they take months to repair,” admitted De Ruyter.
Planned and unplanned maintenance
Eskom currently has 4,435 MW out due to planned maintenance.
“There’s a loss of 720MW generation capacity at Medupi generator four. The plant will be completed by end of next year.
“Koeberg is also out on a planned outage. It needs refilling of nuclear fuel, this will take 100 days. We could not keep Koeberg online.”
But unplanned system breakdowns led to 8093 MW being wiped off the grid. There have also been partial load losses of 5368MW.
“We regret this, and we are working hard to bring these units back online. There was no choice but to implement stage 2,” said De Ruyter.
Grid’s backup generation capacity
Currently, the national grid does not have enough backup generation capacity to prevent a national blackout.
“Because of the poor performance of coal-fired stations, we have to rely on diesel, which we loathe,” said De Ruyter.
The recent increase in diesel prices has exacerbated the situation.
But Eskom is adamant that these five days of load shedding will be used to replenish the country’s power reserves, particularly the Open Cycle Diesel Turbines and the water supply.
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Planned maintenance problems
Eskom’s Project Director Philip Dukahse admitted Eskom underestimated the maintenance process.
“The key to planned outages is readiness. We need 80% readiness from the time the unit goes offline,” said Dukashe.
De Ruyter emphasised funds need to be readily available to order resources on time so that they are delivered at the time the plant goes offline.
He said sometimes the scope of the maintenance is far greater than was originally planned for because regular servicing was not done in the past.
But Dukashe says they are forging long term contracts with suppliers to ensure that materials are available during the repair process.
No evidence of sabotage
Last week the power utility said that it invested an additional R48 million in security because of sabotage at its major stations.
But De Ruyter said there was no tangible proof that the weekend breakdowns went linked to acts of sabotage.
“We have found that there may have been activities that were not part of the normal maintenance, but not sabotage,” he said.
Eskom will provide daily system updates for this period of load shedding.
Find your load shedding schedule here.
NOW READ: Eskom not sacrificing maintenance ‘under any circumstances’
