‘Major disappointment’: Ramokgopa says cluster of failing units contributing to intensity of load shedding

Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa has labelled performance of Eskom’s power station in generating electricity over the past two weeks as a “major disappointment”.

Cluster of failing units

Briefing the media on the updates of the energy action plan on Sunday, Ramokgopa said South Africa experienced frequent load shedding in recent times due to the unplanned capacity loss factor.

This meant that generation units were failing at a much faster rate in the weeks preceding the two-week period.

“Part of the deterioration is that we have had a significant failure of a cluster of units at Eskom,” the minister told reporters.

Ramokgopa indicated that the baseline average capacity currently stood at 26 499 megawatts (MW), which is lower to compared the average achieved in May.

“The weeks before we were 2000 megawatts better than what has been the performance over the past week,” he said.

ALSO READ: SA should brace for higher stages of load shedding going into 2024

The minister said partial load losses was another contributor to Eskom’s performance.

“The partial load losses simply means that the units, although they are on load and generating megawatts, those megawatts that they are generating don’t approximate their design capacity.

“Again to back to the metaphor of the car, we know that this car can reach maximum speed of 120 kilometres an hour, however, the car is only moving 60 kilometres an hour so it means that we are losing half of its capacity. That’s an area that requires attention,” Ramokgopa explained.

He pointed out that outage slips, where offline units do not return to service on time, was also a contributing factor.

In the last two weeks, units at Kendal, Medupi, Duvha, Hendrina, Camdem and Kriel power stations have failed.

“That’s the cluster that I am talking about and if we were to compute them it amounts to over 2 700 megawatts, just shy of three stages of load shedding. If [these units had not failed], of course we will not see the kind of intensity of load sheading we are experiencing,” Ramokgopa said.

Watch the briefing below:

Koeberg power station

Ramokgopa further confirmed the return of unit 1 at the Koeberg nuclear power station near Cape Town.

The unit 1 returned to service on Saturday, almost a year after it was taken offline.

The minister said unit 2 is expected to be taken offline to undergo a similar mechanical process of having its steam generators replaced.

He highlighted that unit 1’s steam generators needed to be replaced as part of Eskom’s application for a licence to extend Koeberg’s operation for another 20 years.

The licence of nuclear power plant, which was designed to be operated for only 40 years, is set to expired in 2024.

“We are extending the life of the Koeberg Power Station. We want to extend it by about 20 years. We have got two units there that are generating about 920 megawatts of energy each and as part of the licencing requirement we had to take these units out, but we didn’t do this simultaneously. We took unit 1 out in December last year,” he said.

READ MORE: Brighter festive season: Load shedding improvements are ‘permanent’

Ramokgopa said the delay in unit 1 returning online had a negative implications.

“The plan was that it should be out for about 170 days so approximately six months. If you had to keep to that timeline, unit 1 should have come back around June. So it essentially means that about four months of outage slip and that doesn’t reflect well on our ability to keep to our promise

“And that comes at a great cost because we are delaying the licencing deal, but it also has implication that the duration of the outage slip simply means that the country will not benefit from those megawatts and it also delays taking out unit 2… it has got a significant cost to the South African economy.”

He added that he will receive a comprehensive report to get a better understanding of the factors behind the four month delay.

“There will be a planning meeting at Koeberg and of course in the next cycle we will tell you when unit 2 will go out,” Ramokgopa continued.