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The parastatal’s vow to avoid load shedding over winter will be hard to keep as it is contingent on an almost insurmountable list of fixes
Eskom’s bold promise to avoid all load shedding this winter – or at least limit it to stage 1 – is contingent on a number of optimistic assumptions.
At a media briefing at the Lethabo Power Station in the Free State last week, two best-case scenarios were presented to journalists.
For zero load shedding to take place, Eskom will have to:
. Get four power station units online, including two broken ones, as well as units from both of the troubled and delayed new Medupi and Kusile stations;
. Reduce unplanned outages, meaning breakdowns, from the recent high of 13 000 megawatts to 9 500MW through intense preventive maintenance. Currently, the outages are at 11 000MW;
. Restore the remaining 300MW of power from the Cahora Bassa hydroelectric plant in Mozambique, which was cut off due to recent damage caused by Cyclone Idai;
. Get normal household consumers to somehow reduce electricity usage in winter by 100MW to 500MW, despite winter months normally causing more consumption due to the need for indoor heating; and
. Keep the emergency diesel plants running by procuring and storing enough fuel.
The second scenario of limited stage one load shedding would rely on all the same assumptions, except that breakdowns would be more than 9 500MW.
This lengthy list of positive developments would stop load shedding, but, on the other hand, there is always the risk of new plant breakdowns.
During the previous bout of stage 4 load shedding, Eskom’s short-term predictions were extremely off the mark.
ARE THEY OR AREN’T THEY?
The briefing also gave mixed messages about the underperformance of the giant new Medupi and Kusile stations, which will eventually both have six units producing almost 800MW each – a huge boost to the system.
The three commercially operational Medupi units and the one unit at Kusile are delivering power at 50% capacity.
At an earlier briefing, Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan had blamed this on design flaws and had threatened contractors involved with severe consequences.
Eskom engineers had likewise blamed inherent flaws for the bad performance at the power stations.
Gordhan and Eskom executives were joined last week by members of two different task teams currently working on Eskom, who had an entirely different view.
Phindile Mooketsi, a former Eskom station manager who serves on Eskom’s own technical review team, said that Medupi and Kusile were actually performing well.
“It is not so bad compared with elsewhere in the world,” she said.
She added that the next units at the stations due for connection to the grid were doing excellently.
The coordinator of the Eskom team, Ian Morrison, likewise said that all power stations start out with “teething problems” and simply need to “settle down”.
About R4.5 billion has been set aside to deal with some of the problems, though Eskom sources have previously said this would not be enough.
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