By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Eskom has spent R9.2-billion on diesel since the start of the State-owned utility’s financial year on April 1, which it claims to be marginally below an initial budget for the period of R9.7-billion.
The Presidency’s Rudi Dicks provided the figure during a regular weekly update on the implementation of the Energy Action Plan, during which Electricity Minister Dr Kgisientsho Ramokgopa reiterated that it had always been Eskom’s intention to use the open-cycle gas turbines to reduce winter loadshedding.
Ramokgopa said the power utility had planned three key interventions to keep load shedding as low as possible during winter: trying to make plants run better, reducing demand, and burning diesel.
“We are not surprised by these numbers. It was always part of our deliberate strategy to protect the SA economy,” he said in reference to the R9.2 billion figure.
Ramokgopa briefed the media on Sunday on the progress made in the battle against load shedding.
The minister said, he expected the intensity of load shedding to start to decrease as the country nears the end of winter, although he gave no definite promises.
An expected fall in demand will allow Eskom to ramp up planned maintenance at its fleet of power stations, he said.
Ramokgopa used the presentation to provide greater detail on the performance of individual coal stations, as well as to express his hope that Koeberg Unit 1 would be returned to service on November 3 and ahead of the Unit 2 outage, which is scheduled to begin on November 7.
The Minister provided a breakdown of three clusters of coal stations, with the first cluster (comprising Medupi, Lethabo, Camden, Duvha and Majuba) said to be operating at an energy availability factor (EAF) that was consistently better than 60%.
The EAF of the second cluster – comprising Matla, Arnot, Kendal and Kriel – was lower at between 40% and 59%, and had become a major area of focus for Eskom, as well as private specialists recruited with the support of the R100-million business-financed Resource Mobilisation Fund.
Particular attention was being given to interventions aimed at enabling power stations such as Kendal and Kriel to ramp up production without breaching air pollution thresholds.
There were also safety, cost and emission assessments under way as part of a controversial bid to finalise the delayed decommissioning of Camden in light of its relatively strong performance.
The Koeberg nuclear station has also been included in the second cluster, given its current EAF of only 48%, precipitated largely by a protracted Unit 1 outage, which began in December and was initially scheduled to be completed in June.
Meanwhile South Africa’s energy crisis may worsen in the near future as Eskom engages in several disputes with French contractor Framatome regarding the Koeberg Nuclear Power Station.
Koeberg’s operating license expires next year, and the plant will not have its life extended by another 20 years if it fails to replace the three steam developers in each of the plant’s two units. However, work at the power station has faced several delays.
Unit 1 was taken online in December 2022 for what was supposed to be “180 days”. The unit was expected to come back online by June 2023, but after suffering several delays, the project’s completion date has been pushed back to November 2023.
This poses a critical problem, as Unit 2 will be decommissioned on November 7 for the same procedure.
The severe delays have been caused by multiple failures from Eskom and French firm Framatome.
The refurbishment project started in 2010 and 2012. However, over the course of the project, several significant missteps led to various parts of the process being delayed.
This included having to fly 320-ton generators to China to be fixed. These were subsequently deemed unsavable forcing a restart in production. The delay set back the refurbishment project by two years, the paper said, with the generators arriving back in South Africa in 2020 – not 2018 as planned.
Locally, Eskom also failed to do its part in constructing a building to house the old generators which emit radiation.
All along the multi-year journey, both Eskom and Framatome have been hit with penalties because of the delays.
Ramokgopa has also expressed concerns that the planned maintenance may face even more delays in the near future.
Koeberg provides nearly 2,000 MW of power, equating to roughly two stages of load shedding. Having both Units offline could bring further damage to South Africa’s plan to stop load shedding.
To ensure that they maintain Koeberg’s operating license, Eskom has asked the National Nuclear Regulator to separate the licenses of the two units based on their completion date.
Unit 1 was finished in July 1984, with its lifespan set to expire in July 2024. As previously mentioned, work on unit 1 should be finished by November 2023.
Unit 2 was completed 17 months after Unit 1, with Eskom asking that both units get their own separate licenses.
This would give Unit 2 a slightly longer period to finish refurbishments, which would hopefully allow the site to still operate in the midst of South Africa’s energy crisis.
Elevated levels of load-shedding so far in 2023 could cost the South African economy R1.6 trillion in lost economic activity – R400 billion more than last year.
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Video Courtesy of GCIS.