Eskom struggles with plant breakdowns

Eskom increased the level of load shedding further on Monday because of delays in returning generating units to service and breakdowns at five other plants.

Load shedding is being increased to stage 5 — in which 5GW is removed from the grid — until 5am on Tuesday, Eskom said on Monday afternoon. Thereafter, stage-4 load shedding will be implemented until further notice, it said.

Electricity minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa is “worried and extremely upset” about delays in returning a unit of the Koeberg nuclear power plant to service, the Daily Maverick reported.

Unit 1 at Koeberg, which generates 920MW of power, has been offline since December for planned maintenance, refuelling and life-extension works and was meant to return to service 10 weeks ago, the news website said. The delay in returning the unit to operation “presents the real danger of the overlap between the delayed return of unit 1 and also the taking out of unit 2,” it quoted Ramokgopa as saying.

Unit 2, which also generates 920MW, is scheduled to go offline for refurbishment in September, it said.

South African power-project developer G7 Renewable Energies is seeking to block new rules governing the connection of plants to the national electricity grid, saying they are flawed and will impair the addition of more generation capacity.

Eskom said in June it had introduced “interim grid capacity allocation rules” to avoid the “hogging” of grid capacity and ensure only so-called shovel-ready projects are allocated capacity. That was after private generation projects were sidelined, in part because of a lack of connections to the grid.

Cancelled

Eskom said it wasn’t immediately able to comment.

Eskom cancelled coal-supply agreements and construction contracts valued at R11-billion, as the South African authorities crack down on crime at the state-owned utility, President Cyril Ramaphosa said.

Litigation by Eskom has also had coal-supply agreements worth R3.7-billion declared invalid, while other coal and construction deals worth R10-billion have been set aside, Ramaphosa said in response to a question from an opposition MP.  — (c) 2023 Bloomberg LP

Get TechCentral’s daily newsletter