Medupi Power Station. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
Medupi Power Station. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
The absolute state of Eskom. Fresh from cutting the lights over the weekend, the flimsy firm have been on the defensive since Saturday. An extended period of Stage 2 load shedding came to an end on Sunday evening, as the constrained electricity system continued to struggle despite reduced demand.
Eskom: Why we could see load shedding make a swift return
It has since been revealed that Medupi – the Mabena of South African power stations – is once again the cause of these recent issues. A technical fault with a conveyor belt plunged the country into darkness, and we might all suffer another collective case of deja vu.
Jan Oberholzer is Eskom’s COO. He told CapeTalk on Monday that Medupi’s problems are likely to be mirrored by another shoddy new build, the Kusile facility. Very much partners in crime, the billion-rand blunders have drained SA’s energy system, instead of making an improved contribution to the reserves.
Medupi and Kusile – failing together
According to Oberholzer, the similar design structures at both plants is likely to cause an identical breakdown at Kusile. The executive says its something they can only address once it happens:
“We’ve lost a conveyer belt from the mines before, and had problems with cable faults and their specific inclines which takes coal into the bunker. This time, we lost 30 metres of the belt – it usually takes 48 hours or so to fix. This system has now been fixed, and it’s sending coal into the furnace.”
“I have instructed our designers to redesign the coal-handling to ensure redundancy. But you must remember, what we have at Medupi, we have exactly the same at Kusile. So if we’re experiencing the problem now at Medupi, for whatever reason, the chance that we’re going to have it at Kusile is very likely.”
Jan Oberholzer
More units set to go offline, as businesses return to work
Adding to the country’s power problems, it was also revealed that the troubled Medupi site will soon see it’s third unit taken offline “for 75 days or so”. In dire need of repair, Eskom were hoping to shut the operation down on Monday. But while the grid is still vulnerable, they have had to postpone the matter.
“There isn’t enough redundancy [at Medupi] … These two stations [including Kusile] contribute more than 20% of the country’s capacity… Medupi 1 is not producing any energy, but all the other units are running.“
“We believe some things could’ve been done differently, when building these two plants. Because of our constrained system, we were planning to take Medupi 3 out and implement modification. But there’s not enough power in the grid, we’re holding back for a week or so on this”.
Jan Oberholzer
Challenges facing Eskom this week
The lack of energy security and logistical nightmares posed by Medupi and Kusile puts Eskom in a very difficult position. President Ramaphosa has already suggested that load shedding would be in place by mid-January, and altough it arrived almost two weeks early, the fears raised by Cyril in December still exist.
Monday is the first day back to work for many industrial and commercial sectors. There will certainly be a surge of power consumption over the next few days, and there’s huge uncertainty regarding Eskom’s ability to keep the lights on.
