Eskom plans to increase maintenance on power plants during winter to the most on record – without more scheduled electricity cuts.
“We are trying to do maintenance with little or no load-shedding‚” acting CEO Brian Molefe told reporters in Johannesburg yesterday.
The state-owned utility will take “an unprecedented” 5500MW of capacity off the grid‚ he said – the most yet in the colder months of May to August.
Power shortages are hampering a recovery in the economy from the slowest growth since the 2009 recession.
Eskom‚ which provides 95% of electricity to the country‚ is battling to upgrade ageing plants at the same time as building new generation capacity.
The utility connected the first unit of its coal-fired Medupi plant on March 2‚ eight years after construction began.
The 800MW unit “is on track” to come into commercial operation by the end of August‚ he said.
Independent power producers contribute 1872MW to the grid‚ with 1300MW coming from renewable sources such as solar and wind‚ he said.
The utility will add more than 17000MW of new capacity to the national grid over the next five years as it spends R280-billion to upgrade plants‚ 64% of which are in their midlife.
In its quarterly state of the system report released yesterday, Eskom said it was making steady progress in reducing its maintenance backlog‚ and in most cases it had been able to do maintenance without cuts.
Eskom has consistently warned the power system will be constrained for at least the next two years‚ and balancing supply and demand during this period will be difficult.
Molefe said the focus of the maintenance drive was to ensure the long-term reliability and sustainability of power generating plants.
“Since December the availability of Eskom’s plant performance has improved from 65% to 75%,” he said.
“Going forward‚ we plan to continue with our maintenance programme in an effort to reduce the backlog that has accumulated over the past few years.
“Most importantly‚ we plan to execute the maintenance drive without having to implement load-shedding.”
According to Eskom‚ more than 64% of its power stations are in their midlife, which means they require preventative maintenance in order to improve their performance and ensure their safety.
However‚ over the past few years a backlog of maintenance outages has developed‚ and Eskom has identified it as a priority to reduce the backlog as well as keep up with the maintenance schedule.
Molefe urged all electricity users to continue using electricity sparingly in order to allow Eskom enough space to continue with the requisite maintenance.
As has been the case since the winter of 2013‚ some generation maintenance will continue to be done throughout the winter period to assist in ensuring a sustainable generation fleet‚ he said.
This is in line with the company’s vision of achieving an 80% plant availability‚ 10% planned maintenance and 10% unplanned maintenance in the next three years.
The adherence to philosophy maintenance (regular scheduled maintenance) is set to limit unplanned maintenance below 7500MW in summer and below 5500MW in winter.
While there is expected to be sufficient power supply to meet demand for most part of the day‚ in winter the load increase could be up to 36000MW, particularly over the short sharp evening peak between 5.30pm and 6.30pm predominantly due to the use of electric heaters‚ geysers and cooking that takes place during this time‚ the power utility said.
“Eskom plans to bring on stream units 3 and 4 of the Ingula pumped storage facility between January and March 2016 respectively.
“In total‚ over 1500MW new generating capacity will be added to the national grid by the end of this current financial year,” Eskom said.
Referring to Medupi, which consists of six units of about 800MW each‚ for a grand total of 4800MW or 12% of Eskom’s total installed capacity, Eskom said it was “pulling out all stops to ensure the completion of the remaining five units is not hampered by technical or labour issues”.
The 100MW Sere Wind Farm near Vredendal in the Western Cape came into full commercial operation on 31 March 2015.
“The achievement of this milestone is in line with the commitments made by Eskom in terms of both time and cost and the result of successful interaction between Eskom and our contractors‚” Eskom added. — Bloomberg-RDM News Wire
Eskom plans winter repairs
“We are trying to do maintenance with little or no load-shedding‚” acting CEO Brian Molefe told reporters in Johannesburg yesterday.
The state-owned utility will take “an unprecedented” 5500MW of capacity off the grid‚ he said – the most yet in the colder months of May to August.
Power shortages are hampering a recovery in the economy from the slowest growth since the 2009 recession.
Eskom‚ which provides 95% of electricity to the country‚ is battling to upgrade ageing plants at the same time as building new generation capacity.
The utility connected the first unit of its coal-fired Medupi plant on March 2‚ eight years after construction began.
The 800MW unit “is on track” to come into commercial operation by the end of August‚ he said.
Independent power producers contribute 1872MW to the grid‚ with 1300MW coming from renewable sources such as solar and wind‚ he said.
The utility will add more than 17000MW of new capacity to the national grid over the next five years as it spends R280-billion to upgrade plants‚ 64% of which are in their midlife.
In its quarterly state of the system report released yesterday, Eskom said it was making steady progress in reducing its maintenance backlog‚ and in most cases it had been able to do maintenance without cuts.
Eskom has consistently warned the power system will be constrained for at least the next two years‚ and balancing supply and demand during this period will be difficult.
Molefe said the focus of the maintenance drive was to ensure the long-term reliability and sustainability of power generating plants.
“Since December the availability of Eskom’s plant performance has improved from 65% to 75%,” he said.
“Going forward‚ we plan to continue with our maintenance programme in an effort to reduce the backlog that has accumulated over the past few years.
“Most importantly‚ we plan to execute the maintenance drive without having to implement load-shedding.”
According to Eskom‚ more than 64% of its power stations are in their midlife, which means they require preventative maintenance in order to improve their performance and ensure their safety.
However‚ over the past few years a backlog of maintenance outages has developed‚ and Eskom has identified it as a priority to reduce the backlog as well as keep up with the maintenance schedule.
Molefe urged all electricity users to continue using electricity sparingly in order to allow Eskom enough space to continue with the requisite maintenance.
As has been the case since the winter of 2013‚ some generation maintenance will continue to be done throughout the winter period to assist in ensuring a sustainable generation fleet‚ he said.
This is in line with the company’s vision of achieving an 80% plant availability‚ 10% planned maintenance and 10% unplanned maintenance in the next three years.
The adherence to philosophy maintenance (regular scheduled maintenance) is set to limit unplanned maintenance below 7500MW in summer and below 5500MW in winter.
While there is expected to be sufficient power supply to meet demand for most part of the day‚ in winter the load increase could be up to 36000MW, particularly over the short sharp evening peak between 5.30pm and 6.30pm predominantly due to the use of electric heaters‚ geysers and cooking that takes place during this time‚ the power utility said.
“Eskom plans to bring on stream units 3 and 4 of the Ingula pumped storage facility between January and March 2016 respectively.
“In total‚ over 1500MW new generating capacity will be added to the national grid by the end of this current financial year,” Eskom said.
Referring to Medupi, which consists of six units of about 800MW each‚ for a grand total of 4800MW or 12% of Eskom’s total installed capacity, Eskom said it was “pulling out all stops to ensure the completion of the remaining five units is not hampered by technical or labour issues”.
The 100MW Sere Wind Farm near Vredendal in the Western Cape came into full commercial operation on 31 March 2015.
“The achievement of this milestone is in line with the commitments made by Eskom in terms of both time and cost and the result of successful interaction between Eskom and our contractors‚” Eskom added. — Bloomberg-RDM News Wire
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