Minister of Electricity Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa has placed all his hopes of ending higher stages of load shedding on the misfiring Kusile power station in Witbank, Mpumalanga.
Kusile is a multi-billion rand 3,200MW coal-fired power station in which a number of generation units are not operating after a section of the flue-gas desulphurisation (FGD) duct, which carries emissions from Kusile Unit 1 into a large chimney, collapsed in October 2022, contributing roughly two stages of load shedding.
Kusile and Koeberg nuclear power stations are the biggest contributors to the ongoing energy crisis as they have taken at least 3,000MW from Eskom’s generation capacity.
Ramokgopa yesterday said he will be visiting Kusile today where he expects to announce the timelines set to return some units back into service at the power station.
“We make the point that Kusile sits on a critical path. It gives us a path to ending load shedding. We will give you an extensive brief next week Sunday, but then tomorrow we are at Kusile and we have invited you to come and share with you the kind of progress that we're making,” Ramokgopa said.
“Seeing is believing, and you have to see that we're making the kind of progress that we had promised to make. In fact, I'm confident that Mr [Bheki] Nxumalo and the team are even exceeding those targets. But let's wait for tomorrow and to get that formal briefing and we should be in a position to make a formal announcement.”
Last week, Eskom implemented Stage 6 load shedding after months of reduced power cuts as breakdowns increased above 16,000MW whilst more than 5,000MW of generation capacity was out of service.
Some analysts have suggested that Eskom encountered Stage 7 load-shedding on Wednesday evening, marking the most severe level recorded, even though there was no official announcement.
Ramokgopa yesterday acknowledged that Eskom last week suffered a “significant setback” in terms of generation capacity but the deployment of experts to relevant power stations had averted a catastrophe.
“There's going to be momentary setbacks, and we suffered that day during the week. And as I've explained, it is largely on account of us breaking up maintenance to save the units from failing on what we call unplanned capacity loss factor,” Ramokgopa said.
“We did have this peaking between Tuesday and Thursday. That's when we saw a significant increase in the unplanned capacity loss factor by this considerable amount of megawatts units that have been returned.
“I really need to make this point. It can't be over-emphasised. We are going to do things the right way. We are going to fix these units. We are going to use the fiscal support that has been given to us by the National Treasury. Like I said, it’s short-term pain but long term gain.”
The troubled power utility, however, eased the intensity of load shedding over the weekend to between stages 1 and 4 after reducing breakdowns to 15,895MW of generating capacity, with a generating unit each at Camden and Kendal power stations taken offline for repairs.
Nxumalo, the head of generation at Eskom, answered the question on why the power utility has not moved on the 100MW power offered by Mozambique Electricity Company three months ago.
“We issued a statement during the week that that power has not flown in. Obviously, Eskom as a State entity there is a process that needs to be followed there,” Nxumalo said.
“That process is still being followed and the team within our transmission who are dealing with that import, they are working with that process and then we will come and announce once it's finalised.”
Business Report