Getting as much as 6 000 MW additional capacity on the grid, will give Eskom space to roll out its maintenance programme, but for now the system is constrained, says an executive.
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- Eskom on Monday painted a dire picture of SA's load shedding outlook at its state of the system briefing.
- Eskom has implemented 32 days of load shedding since April, mainly due to unplanned breakdowns - last year there were 47 days of load shedding in total.
- Eskom's energy availability factor is at 65.3%, compared to the target of 70%.
Eskom has implemented 32 days of load shedding since April, and the outlook for the rest of the year is not good.
Eskom executives, including chief operating officer Jan Oberholzer, group executive of generation Philip Dukashe and group executive of transmission Segomoco Scheppers on Monday briefed the media on the state of the power system.
The Energy Availability Factor (EAF) is at 65.3%, a "poor performance" relative to the target of 70%, according to Oberholzer. The EAF is a measure of power fed to the grid from power stations.
"Currently with generation, we are going through a tough time. It is just taking longer than what we envisaged," Oberholzer said.
Over the weekend, Eskom's EAF was at 58.5%. The power utility had implemented stage 2 load shedding to replenish emergency reserves after a number of units at coal-fired power stations experienced breakdowns. Eskom announced load shedding would continue on Monday and Tuesday evening, after a unit at Koeberg tripped, Fin24 previously reported.
Oberholzer explained that the planned maintenance at units had a negative impact on the EAF in the short term, but in the long term helped ensure sustainability of the system. In comparison to utilities with 80% EAF - such as those in the US and the EU - these utilities have not neglected maintenance, said Oberholzer.
Over winter - April to August - 14 days of stage 2 load shedding were implemented, five days of stage 1 and one day each for stage 3 and stage 4 load shedding. Eleven days of load shedding were implemented in September.
Curve balls
"The curve balls we received at Medupi and Kendal and Koeberg, yesterday, made things difficult," said Oberholzer.
Medupi unit 4 suffered an explosion in August and in September a fire broke out at Kendal power station. On Sunday, Koeberg unit 1 tripped as a result of a fault at a feedwater pump, Oberholzer explained. There were no nuclear safety concerns.
Collectively there is a loss of capacity of over 2 000 MW from Medupi, Kendal and Koeberg, Oberholzer explained.
Oberholzer explained that in the past two weeks there were also challenges with hydroelectric plant Cahora Bassa, based in Mozambique.
For now, Oberholzer said Eskom is prioritising its reliability maintenance programme - which is not a "once-off" but an "ongoing" programme. He likened it to having a car and continuously maintaining it.
"We acknowledge our performance is far from where it should be," said Dukashe. A number of Eskom units are still unreliable - but the power utility is driving improvements through maintenance, including skills and leadership, he explained. A big factor that would ease the pressure on the system is introducing between 4 000 MW to 6 000 MW of additional capacity to the system.
Due to the constrained system, Eskom often delays maintenance. "If we have additional capacity and funds required, we can plan those interventions (outages)," he explained.
As for concerns over the rainy season, Dukashe explained that there is preparation for rain readiness. Eskom is working to improve its coal handling ability and to reduce the risk of wet coal incidents during the rainy season, the power utility highlighted in a separate statement. More investments however are still required for the west coal strategy. Eskom has managed to maintain healthy coal stock levels across its generation fleet - and has an average of 48 days' worth of coal stockpiled at power stations. The grid code requirements are for them to hold at lest 20 days' worth of stock.
Capacity outlook
Until the end of August 2022, the power system will be fairly constrained, according to Eskom's assessments. It will have to continue to use Open Cycle Gas Turbines, which run on diesel to avoid further load shedding.
"As the public, customers need to be cautioned to expect there could still be load shedding," said Scheppers. This is largely attributed to reliability maintenance. Among other contributing factors for load shedding include a shortage of generation capacity, unplanned unavailability of capacity and the need to replenish depleted emergency resources.
Since September, Eskom increased its planned maintenance to an average of 5 500 MW of capacity - double that carried out between September 2019 and April 2020, but comparable for with the levels carried out over the same period last year.
For Eskom's base case for the summer period - September 2021 to April 2022, it expects to implement one day of stage 1 load shedding. That would be contingent on spending R2.5 billion on open cycle gas turbines.
"Now this is practically very difficult to do, what this is telling us is the likelihood is that we would be having more than that one day. We have experienced more than 10 days this summer, we are not off to a good start, unfortunately," said Scheppers.
If the performance is worse than base case - we project potentially 40 days of stage 2, accompanied by significant spend on diesel (R6.7 billion), he added. "It is really not a good picture," he said.
Another scenario shows that stage 3 load shedding could be implemented up to 94 days, with spend on open cycle gas turbines of R13.5 billion.
Commenting on the impact of additional capacity coming on stream from the renewable energy independent power producer procurement programme, Oberholzer said that he did not think the procurement programme moves fast enough given the urgency of getting additional capacity on the grid. He said there was nothing wrong with having bid window, but they were "taking long" compared to where the country finds itself with a constrained power system.
He welcomed the lifting of the licence threshold for generating facilities to 100 MW, but this too will take long to come online, he added.
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