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Electricity minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa. Picture: FREDDY MAVUNDA
Electricity minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa. Picture: FREDDY MAVUNDA

Eskom’s power stations performed “exceptionally” well in the second and third weeks of December, which bodes well for the rest of the month.

Addressing the media on Thursday, minister of electricity Kgosientsho Ramokgopa said he is “confident” SA will have a “festive season with the lights on”.

“Not the candles, the candles will be there but not to perform the function of lighting, but just celebratory. And we’ll have the proper lights on to usher in 2024,” he said.

However, even though the “system has been healthy” over the past 14 days, the generation fleet remains too unreliable to predict with any certainty whether the recent improvements will be maintained.

“Fixing Eskom” remains central to improving the long-term energy outlook for SA, he said.

In the third week of December, for the first time since August 2022, energy unavailability due to unplanned breakdowns dropped below 11,000MW.

The recent return of three generation units at Kusile power station, after they suffered a major failure in October 2022, contributed to the better performance in December.

Information published on Eskom’s data portal shows that average unplanned outages for the first three weeks of December stood at about 12,900MW compared with 16,300MW for the same period in 2022.

This improvement, together with a drop in demand as industries start their December shutdowns, has made it possible for Eskom to “accelerate maintenance”.

Over the past two weeks about 8,000MW of generation capacity was unavailable, on average, due to maintenance outages.

This “aggressive maintenance regime is beginning to yield fruit”, Ramokgopa said. However, because the generation fleet is still unreliable Eskom cannot guarantee that there will not be more unit failures.

Eskom’s generation recovery plan aims to improve the energy available factor (EAF) — a measure of actual generation output as a percentage of total installed generation capacity — to 60% by end-March 2024 and 65% by end-March 2025.

For the year to date from April 1, the average EAF was about 55%, but Ramokgopa said the return of the Kusile units and other recent improvements will make it possible to “get closer to 60%”.

To reach these targets Eskom is focusing on six power stations for improvements over the next two years: Duvha, Majuba, Matla, Kendal, Kriel and Kusile. These stations, said Ramokgopa, offer the best opportunity to see large improvements over the two-year time frame.

Data supplied by Eskom shows that Duvha and Majuba saw an average improvement in EAF of about 19% for the six months from June to November compared with the same period last year.

Matla’s average EAF for the six-month period remained at 57%, similar to last year, but on a monthly basis the station’s EAF improved markedly over the past three months.

EAF performance at Kendal and Tutuka deteriorated. Tutuka, the worst-performing station in the group, had an average EAF of only 24% for the six months to end-November, compared with 28% for the same period last year.

Ramokgopa said that because of “the exceptional circumstances at Tutuka”, one of the most experienced GMs at Eskom has been assigned, together with a recovery team, to manage the recovery of this power station.

“In rugby terms this is what you would call the ‘bomb squad’, but given the complexities and the depth of the problem it will take time to see improvement,” he said.

Kendal’s EAF for the six months to end-November dropped from 50% in 2022 to 37%. This was partly due to Eskom having to maintain certain minimum emissions standards.

“We have a responsibility to run the power stations within their licence parameters even if it means they are not run to their full capacity,” Ramokgopa said.

erasmusd@businesslive.co.za

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