{"id":221928,"date":"2022-04-12T13:04:53","date_gmt":"2022-04-12T11:04:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/broken-down-generating-units-expected-back-online-before-weekend\/"},"modified":"2022-04-12T13:04:53","modified_gmt":"2022-04-12T11:04:53","slug":"broken-down-generating-units-expected-back-online-before-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/broken-down-generating-units-expected-back-online-before-weekend\/","title":{"rendered":"Broken down generating units expected back online before weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Eskom Chief Executive, Andre de Ruyter, says although power supply will remain constrained throughout the week, several generating units are expected to return to service ahead of the Easter holidays.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got a number of units returning before the long weekend\u2026 Matla power station [unit] 6, Grootvlei power station [unit] 3, five units at Camden Power Station. Tuthuka power station [unit] 3 should also be returning from a boiler tube leak before the long weekend,\u201d he said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The electricity supplier was forced to implement load shedding on Monday evening because of breakdowns and losses of generating capacity at several power stations. The utility is also due to implement load shedding again from 5pm this afternoon until 5am on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The chief executive said reserve-generating capacity remains in a healthy state at the country\u2019s two open cycle gas turbines.<\/p>\n

He added, however, that the power utility would \u201cwant to avoid using that as much as possible\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have about 70% worth of diesel at Ankerlig [power station] which\u2026generates electricity using diesel during peak hours and emergency purposes. This is enough to keep all the units running for 24 hours. This may seem like a lot but it is not because we have to replenish the diesel by road and this creates some logistical challenges for us, so we have to conserve diesel at Ankerlig.<\/p>\n

\u201cGourikwa power station\u2026is sitting at a far healthier 85% because we have access to extensive offsite storage facility connected by pipelines. There we have some 36 hours of operation if all units are utilised simultaneously,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The total amount of lost generating capacity is currently 13 966MW which will render Eskom unable to keep up with demand on Tuesday evening.<\/p>\n

A further 4804MW of generating capacity is also unavailable due to maintenance.<\/p>\n

Winter months<\/strong><\/p>\n

De Ruyter said the cautious outlook for the upcoming winter months \u201cis not entirely dire\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are approaching winter where we will throttle back on our planned maintenance\u2026and we have also, historically, seen that the generation fleet performs much better during winter months when the weather is cold and dry, the air is denser and we get better combustion performance out of our coal fired power stations.\u201d<\/p>\n

He warned, however, that a firm outlook on when exactly load shedding will occur cannot be made because of the instability in the power grid.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we have seen, as with the current bout of load shedding, is that we tend to see these clusters of plants and units tripping simultaneously. We are doing work to get to the bottom of these simultaneous failures across the units. There might be some systemic issues that we need to unpack,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Additional capacity<\/strong><\/p>\n

De Ruyter said the power utility is eagerly anticipating the addition of more capacity onto the grid as a result of the Department of Mineral and Energy\u2019s Renewable Energy Procurement Programme.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom round about the middle to the end of next year, we should start seeing additional capacity coming onto the grid as we have advocated for quite some time.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe look forward to that capacity being added to alleviate the pressure that we\u2019re currently experiencing and obviously that will considerably assist in allowing us the headroom to continue to carry out the much needed maintenance on our coal fired fleet.\u201d<\/p>\n

The chief executive added that Eskom itself is embarking on a renewable energy project, which will also bring much needed help.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe issued an inquiry to the market for proposals to build a renewable energy [power plant] on Eskom land adjacent to our power stations where there is sufficient grid connection capacity.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere we have available grid connections capacity, we are now making available land. This is the first of its kind process that we are running [and] we anticipate that we\u2019ll get some 1000MW as a consequence of this process. In about 18 to 24 months, that capacity should be making its presence felt,\u201d he said. \u2013 SAnews.gov.za<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eskom Chief Executive, Andre de Ruyter, says although power supply will remain constrained throughout the week, several generating units are expected to return to service ahead of the Easter holidays. \u201cWe\u2019ve got a number of units returning before the long weekend\u2026 Matla power station [unit] 6, Grootvlei power station [unit] 3, five units at Camden […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":221929,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[38678],"class_list":{"0":"post-221928","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-south-africa","8":"tag-sanews","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/broken-down-generating-units-expected-back-online-before-weekend.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221928\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}