| Update: Eskom


Striving for recovery, but huge challenges remain


A glance at the subject matter of recent press releases issued by Eskom in South Africa (see below) gives a flavour of the challenges that the state owned power utility is facing as it begins the countdown to its 100th anniversary, to be celebrated on 1 March 2023


Not least among the problems faced by Eskom is the continuing need to resort to periods of load shedding, due to planned and unplanned outages (eg, to address equipment design defects, boiler tube leaks, and scaling/fouling of condensers and cooling tower fill, leading to vacuum issues).


There are also security concerns, with theft and vandalism impacting operations, while safety is described as being well below “tolerance levels”, with, regrettably, three employee and two contractor fatalities since 1 April 2021.


At a system status briefing on 27 January 2022 Eskom acknowledged the difficulties, not least the aftermath of the August 2021 generator hydrogen explosion at Medupi 4, but was also able to report that it was “making major positive strides and delivering key milestones” in its plan for operational recovery, although “major projects and outages undertaken this year will continue to exert pressure on the supply side, raising the risk of load shedding in the short term.” However, “these outages…are necessary interventions that will deliver long term benefits and the


security of energy supply”, the utility asserts. “As we continue to turn around the situation in less than ideal circumstances”, André de Ruyter, Eskom’s group chief executive, drew attention to “increasing criminal activities on our networks and our assets, which result in increased risks of customer interruptions, public safety concerns and financial losses”, noting that Eskom had deployed an additional 450 security guards to its key sites, and was “using advanced surveillance technologies such as intelligent cameras and drones equipped with infrared cameras to protect its assets.” Having been synchronised to the grid for the first time during December 2021, on 11 January 2022, unit 4 of the Kusile coal fired power station achieved its full load of 800 MW, with full commercial operation expected by July 2022.


Unit 1 of the Kendal power station, which suffered a major generator transformer failure and fire on 11 September 2021, very shortly after the Medupi explosion, was returned to service on 3 January 2022.


“The generation side of the business remains very challenging,” said Eskom group chief


Above: Hydrogen explosion damage at Medupi 4


operating officer, Jan Oberholzer, “specifically the availability of the coal-fired power stations due to plant unreliability and unpredictability contributing to numerous breakdowns.” The “generation business performance (coal fleet) is not satisfactory.” Specifically, “unplanned outage levels are too high, and this requires high volumes of diesel to run the open cycle gas turbines.”


Some recent media statements from Eskom


● Due to further failures of generation units [at Kendal, Duvha, Camden and Kusile], Stage 4* load shedding will be implemented from 09:00 today until 05:00 on Friday… This being the fourth day of extremely high diesel usage, the emergency reserves are being depleted faster than can be replenished. Stage 4 load shedding will therefore give us the space required to replenish the emergency reserves (9 March 2022)


● Due to multiple unit failures, Stage 2 load shedding will be implemented from 21:00 tonight to 05:00 on Tuesday, and be repeated from 21:00 on Tuesday night until 05:00 on Wednesday (7 March 2022)


● Emfuleni Local Municipality debt continues to accumulate (28 F


ebruary 2022) ● Eskom security guards attacked in Winterveld (24 F ebruary 2022) ebruary 2022) ● Eskom employee arrested for alleged theft of transformer oil (15 F ebruary 2022)


● Stage 2 load shedding will be implemented from 21:00 tonight until 05:00 on Tuesday 8 February 2022 (7 F


● Following further breakdowns during the night, Stage 2 load shedding will be implemented starting at 11:00 on Wednesday until 05:00 on Monday (2 F


ebruary 2022) ebruary 2022)


● Eskom requests the public to reduce the usage of electricity as the power system is severely constrained (1 F


● Dlamini community prevents Eskom from installing prepaid split meters (28 January 2022)


* Stages of load shedding refer to the amount of load that needs to be shed to keep the Eskom system stable: Stage 1 = 1 GW; Stage 2 = 2 GW; Stage 3 = 3 GW; Stage 4 = 4 GW


The year-to-date energy availability factor (EAF) of 62.9% is “not ideal”, he remarked. “It is worth noting, however, that a key contributor to the low EAF were high levels of planned maintenance over the summer months...This aggressive focus on the Reliability Maintenance Recovery Programme and the Generation Recovery Programme, will over time enable Eskom to improve the coal fleet generation performance.” But “the maintenance backlog remains a substantial risk to performance.” Eskom executives also stressed that a structural shortfall in generation capacity of between 4000 MW and 6000 MW needed to be addressed, as, somewhat surprisingly, Eskom says it “is not responsible for procurement of new generation.”


Among its immediate operational priorities, Eskom has carried out a detailed investigation into the hydrogen explosion at Medupi unit 4 on 8 August 2021, which resulted from the mixing of hydrogen and air during a purging process. Frustratingly, the accident occurred very shortly after the last of the six Medupi units (unit 1, as it happens) had been successfully commissioned and handed over, on 31 July 2021.


At the time of the explosion, Medupi unit 4 was in an outage for mill repairs. The outage had started on 6 August 2021 and was scheduled to end on 15 August 2021. Additional scope had been requested to identify and repair an external generator hydrogen leak.


As part of the search for the leak, scaffolding www.modernpowersystems.com | March 2022 | 11


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