By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
State owned power utility Eskom has assured South Africans that the explosion at Kriel power station will not impact the current generation capacity or lead to loadshedding.
Fullview understands that the power station’s unit 6 generator caught fire at around 17:30 on Sunday, 3 November 2024.
“A preliminary investigation revealed that an oil pipe had broken, causing oil to spill on the hot surfaces of the turning, which triggered a fire.”
Eskom noted that Kriel Power Station Unit 6 contributes 475MW to the grid.
“With this unit temporarily offline, total unplanned outages stand at 8,483MW — still 4 517MW below the base case for summer 2024,” it said.
On Friday, Eskom said total unplanned outages over the previous seven days had declined to 9.5GW, a significant improvement on the 16GW of unplanned losses in the same period last year.
“The reduction in unplanned outages means that more generation capacity is available to meet the country’s electricity demand. Additionally, it provides Eskom with the necessary capacity to conduct more planned maintenance activities, which are crucial for further improving the reliability and stability of the generation fleet,” it said.
The company also said that South Africa should have enough generation capacity for the next five years, provided the EAF maintains an average of at least 63%. This will support economic growth of up to 2.6%/year, Eskom’s system operator said.
The utility CEO Dan Marokane expressed optimism that it was in a good position to navigate the high-maintenance summer months loadshedding-free, and that it could be in a position to formally announce an end to loadshedding by the end of March 2025.
Marokane attributed the change to a “structural shift” in the performance of the coal fleet, the energy availability factor (EAF) of which had improve from 57% in April to over 67% since July.