The week of October 27 to November 3 saw Eskom lose 17,300MW due to outages, undermining the gains recorded by the power utility in the previous weeks, electricity minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa said on Sunday.
Briefing the media on the implementation of the Energy Action Plan, he said the loss of 17,000MW was above the 14,500MW power outages that Eskom had set as a benchmark for summer. He said the loss was mainly caused by boiler tube leaks in 11 generating units.
“We have been able to have some degree of credibility [in October], ensuring we are able to sustain available capacity for a period of about 11 days. That is significant psychologically, over that period. We were able to ensure we are not experiencing load-shedding in the country.”
He said on some days, Eskom had reached peaks of available capacity upwards of 30,000MW.
“What has been worrying is the fact that there are a few swings in the available capacity and that is a function of unplanned capacity losses. If you look at the period of October 2 to 6, the unplanned capacity loss factor, partial load losses and outages were sitting at 14,113MW.
“The week after, October 9 to 13, we continued to see the improvement and we went to 13.373MW.”
Ramokgopa said the fewer megawatts lost, the better the performance of the grid and also lower stages of load-shedding.
“When we went to the week starting on October 23, this number came back to 14,998, just shy of 15,000MW, worse than what was going to be the benchmark for summer outlook
“The week that we have come from, the week until Friday, we have experienced 17,003MW of this failure. That is significant. It undermines that positive trajectory.”
Ramokgopa said this loss of available power in the past week was “totally unacceptable”.
“We have the ambition of 14,500MW or less and we are about 2,500MW higher than we have projected. This undermines our ability to address the issue of load-shedding.”
He said one of the major reasons units were failing on their own was because of boiler tube leaks.
“We have not seen this on this scale at the same time over a period of time.”
He said the affected units will return to service this week, adding Eskom was on course with Kusile power station Unit 2.
“We are expecting to get it by the third week of this month.”
Kusile's power units 1, 2 and 3 were out of action after a stacks collapse in October last year.
Eskom announced on September 3 that unit 3 was returned to service, two months ahead of schedule.
Ramokgopa said Kusile unit 5 is expected to enter into operation by the third week of December.
TimesLIVE
Loss of available Eskom power in the past week 'unacceptable', says Ramokgopa
Image: Jairus Mmutle/GCIS/Handout via Reuters
The week of October 27 to November 3 saw Eskom lose 17,300MW due to outages, undermining the gains recorded by the power utility in the previous weeks, electricity minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa said on Sunday.
Briefing the media on the implementation of the Energy Action Plan, he said the loss of 17,000MW was above the 14,500MW power outages that Eskom had set as a benchmark for summer. He said the loss was mainly caused by boiler tube leaks in 11 generating units.
“We have been able to have some degree of credibility [in October], ensuring we are able to sustain available capacity for a period of about 11 days. That is significant psychologically, over that period. We were able to ensure we are not experiencing load-shedding in the country.”
He said on some days, Eskom had reached peaks of available capacity upwards of 30,000MW.
“What has been worrying is the fact that there are a few swings in the available capacity and that is a function of unplanned capacity losses. If you look at the period of October 2 to 6, the unplanned capacity loss factor, partial load losses and outages were sitting at 14,113MW.
“The week after, October 9 to 13, we continued to see the improvement and we went to 13.373MW.”
Ramokgopa said the fewer megawatts lost, the better the performance of the grid and also lower stages of load-shedding.
“When we went to the week starting on October 23, this number came back to 14,998, just shy of 15,000MW, worse than what was going to be the benchmark for summer outlook
“The week that we have come from, the week until Friday, we have experienced 17,003MW of this failure. That is significant. It undermines that positive trajectory.”
Ramokgopa said this loss of available power in the past week was “totally unacceptable”.
“We have the ambition of 14,500MW or less and we are about 2,500MW higher than we have projected. This undermines our ability to address the issue of load-shedding.”
He said one of the major reasons units were failing on their own was because of boiler tube leaks.
“We have not seen this on this scale at the same time over a period of time.”
He said the affected units will return to service this week, adding Eskom was on course with Kusile power station Unit 2.
“We are expecting to get it by the third week of this month.”
Kusile's power units 1, 2 and 3 were out of action after a stacks collapse in October last year.
Eskom announced on September 3 that unit 3 was returned to service, two months ahead of schedule.
Ramokgopa said Kusile unit 5 is expected to enter into operation by the third week of December.
TimesLIVE
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