South Africa faces an “extremely difficult” winter — Eskom power plant boss

3 years ago 3

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Eskom generation manager Bheki Nxumalo says the power utility’s lack of generation capacity will likely make for a challenging winter this year.

The power utility’s energy availability factor (EAF) is significantly lower than in previous years. Nxumalo noted this is the first winter Eskom faces with its Koeberg nuclear power station completely offline.

“We are going through this winter without a unit at Koeberg, which is something that is a first for us in generation,” Nxumalo said during a media briefing on Friday.

Nxumalo said the amount of unavailable capacity would make this winter extremely difficult, adding that they are receiving a lot of support, allowing them to work hard.

The support Nxumalo refers to is from various ministers and other stakeholders through the National Energy Crisis Committee.

“They are really assisting us to try to minimise the impact,” Nxumalo added.

To address Eskom’s generation shortfalls, the government gave its state-owned power utility’s board strict instructions to improve EAF.

At the start of the year, Eskom board chair Mpho Makwana said the goal is to increase the EAF to 60% by 31 March 2023, 65% by 31 March 2024, and 70% by 31 March 2025.

In the presentation on Friday, these targets have already started slipping downward.

Eskom now says it wants to improve EAF to 60% for the 2024 financial year (ending 31 March 2024), and 65% for the 2025 financial year.

For reference, EAF dropped as low as 48.5% at the end of December 2022. The highest EAF Eskom achieved in 2023 was in March, when it reached 58.3%.

The power utility identified eight of its most problematic power stations, six of which it said had contributed approximately 63% — 10,362MW — of the total unplanned capability loss factor (UCLF).

The eight problematic power stations that Eskom has singled out are:

Arnot
Duvha
Kendal
Kriel
Kusile
Majuba
Matla
Tutuka

“These eight stations contribute ∼11,300MW of the unplanned load losses, based on the average UCLF of ∼14,700MW,” Eskom said.

It noted that boiler, turbine, draught plant, gas cleaning, and mill equipment failures were the main contributing factors to the unplanned outages.

Experts warn of higher load-shedding stages this winter

Nxumalo’s description of an “extremely difficult” winter confirms the predictions of several energy experts.

Clyde Mallinson and Professor Mark Swilling predicted that South Africa could face load-shedding as high as stage 9 this winter, in addition to 2,000MW of load-curtailment for energy-intensive industries.

“I hope if we do touch stage 9, it will be for very brief periods, like between 17:00 and 20:00 at night,” said Mallinson.

Swilling concurred, saying the current load-shedding situation would worsen as winter sets in if there is no improvement to Eskom’s generation performance.

He advised that South African brace for higher stages of load-shedding as demand on the grid increases.

Eskom, its System Operator, and other stakeholders started preparing South Africa’s load-shedding code of practice to extend beyond Stage 8. The code of practice provides municipalities with directives on how electrical load must be shared.

Chair of the National Rationalized Specifications Association, Vally Padayachee, said the new code would be submitted to South Africa’s energy regulator in the next few days. Once approved by Nersa, the code holds legal status.

“There has been a lot of consultation, but we need to now put a stop date on it for the sake of the grid,” said Padayachee.

“We cannot guarantee that in winter, we will not go beyond Stage 8.”