Power stations can’t keep up? Not at Lethabo

Eskom’s Lethabo power station is currently performing so well that Seriti’s New Vaal coal mine next door cannot keep up with its coal demand. 

With an energy availability factor that frequently moves above 90%, it outperforms the rest of Eskom’s fleet. The power utility’s latest numbers show that the whole fleet’s availability is a mere 57.61%. While this is still far below the industry norm of 80%, it is better than the average so far for 2023 of 54.29%.

The energy availability factor is defined as the ratio of the available energy generation over a given time period to the maximum amount of energy that could be produced over the same time period.

Eskom is now trucking in additional coal from mines around Ogies and Delmas in Mpumalanga to replenish the stockpile.

Last week it reached 13 days (of coal supply; the ideal is said to be 42), according to power station manager Karabo Rakgolela.

Eskom expects to continue the deliveries for the next three months, which means residents of the Vaal Triangle will have to share the roads with 300 to 500 trucks per day for that period. 

Coal yields

New Vaal is a cost-plus mine, which means Eskom is responsible for capital investment.

This, Rakgolela says, has been neglected for some time. After three months, mining activity should start in a new area of the mine where the yield should be enough to feed Lethabo without additional coal from other mines.

Lethabo, with its six units of 618MW each, currently uses about 50 tons of coal per day. 

It is an old power station, first commissioned in 1985. Its age, however, is no excuse for bad performance, says Rakgolela, who describes himself as “very competitive.”

Read:
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He says Lethabo is “very forgiving” and performs, provided you maintain it. With its (normally) single source of coal, one knows what to expect. It is designed for a high ash content.

“Do maintenance, keep within the design envelope, ensure you have quality operators and feed it with what it needs” is Rakgolela’s recipe for success.

From underperformer to star performer

Rakgolela was first sent to lead the staff at Lethabo in 2019. When he arrived, the plant was dirty and underperforming. The energy availability factor was around 50-60%. 

The first time he walked the plant was with then-CEO André de Ruyter – also freshly appointed at that stage. De Ruyter was clear about the need for improvement. 

In his book Truth to Power: My Three Years Inside Eskom, published after his abrupt departure in April, De Ruyter writes: “I told Karabo that it wouldn’t be fair to hold him responsible after only three days on the job, but that I would be back later and expected to see an improvement. He agreed with my criticism and undertook to clean up his plant. To his credit, he made good on that promise and emerged as one of our most reliable and competent power station managers during my term of office. Karabo excelled to such an extent that he would later be promoted to cluster manager himself.”

As cluster manager for much of the past year, Rakgolela oversaw operations at Matla, Kendal, Grootvlei and Kusile, but Eskom decided to change the management structure. It did away with the chief operating officer role when the incumbent, Jan Oberholzer, retired, and collapsed the layer of cluster managers.

Read:
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De Ruyter book strikes a chord but falls flat on economic fixes

In June, Rakgolela, who has been with Eskom since 1993, returned to Lethabo.

“Being a power station manager is the highlight of my career,” he says. 

The power station manager has the last say about what happens on that site. 

When he returned, Unit 2 was offline due to a generator problem. “Somebody somewhere said no to maintenance. I called him and said let’s swop jobs.” The engineers couldn’t believe it, but the maintenance was done, and the unit returned to service. 

Celebrating excellence

Rakgolela regularly walks the plant. He stops and talks to the staff. “Did you get the necessary support over the weekend?” He wants to know what makes them tick.

When things go well, they always ask about their reward, but it is more about recognition and celebrating excellence than money. Even when there is no budget, one organises some boerewors rolls, and that makes all the difference, he says. 

But things do go wrong sometimes. “This is not a chicken factory. Things go wrong. Then you get the engineers and fix it,” he says – a reflection of his no-nonsense attitude.

The power station manager determines the culture at their power station, Rakgolela says. “You will be shocked to know how much power a power station manager has.”

The 720 employees at Lethabo also get hurt when people get angry at Eskom, but at least they have the defence that Lethabo is playing its part. 

Many people at Eskom knew the organisation at its best, and he believes Eskom will be revived to that level. “Nobody is going to get us out of this but ourselves,” Rakgolela says. 

Distribution company

Meanwhile, the Department of Public Enterprises confirmed on Thursday that it has approved the transfer of assets from Eskom Holdings to its newly formed distribution company, a wholly-owned subsidiary.

“Further work still needs to be done and agreed upon in relation to the business and the financial model of the newly established Distribution company,” it says.

This comes shortly after energy regulator Nersa approved the operating licence of another Eskom subsidiary, the National Transmission Company of South Africa.

These are steps towards the unbundling of Eskom to restructure the local electricity industry from the power utility’s dominance as a vertically integrated monopoly to a competitive market with a level playing field for all players. 

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