- In an interview in Bloomberg’s Johannesburg bureau on Friday, Eskom’s chairman, Mr Mpho Makwana, said a change in its management structure has helped improve its plant performance, enabling blackouts to be eased, and further gains can be expected.
- Makwana stated that the proportion of power Eskom could produce relative to its generating capacity has risen to 60.5%, compared with about 56% a year ago.
- Eskom’s own performance reporting tells a different story.
- Week-on-week energy availability factor (EAF) is up 3 percentage points – from 55.06% in Week 21, 2023, to 58.22% in Week 22, 2023.
- This is around 4.5 percentage points below the EAF of 62.7% for the same Week 22 last year.
- The reality is that the state owned and state run energy utility is rife with corruption, looting, fraud, theft and sabotage. Read more
- South Africans will face daily blackouts of up to 16 hours this winter. Read more
- The utility has unsustainable debt of R438 billion. Read more
“The amelioration has not been a fluke,” Makwana said. He attributed part of the gains to the company’s decisions to scrap the post of chief operating officer and give individual plant managers more direct access to senior executives — changes he said had improved morale. Read more
Related news: High ranking Eskom official alledgedly involved in sabotage
Source: Eskom
South Africa’s Minister of Electricity, Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, meanwhile has has attributed the reduced stages of load shedding and to improved generation performance and a drop in demand. The Minister said demand is also lower than what was projected in Eskom’s winter plan. Read more
Eskom latest blackout status update reports Stage 4 blackouts will be implemented from 16:00 until midnight. Thereafter, loadshedding will be suspended until 16:00 on Monday. On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday loadshedding will be reduced to Stage 3 from 16:00 until midnight. This is due to a continued improvement in available generation capacity as a result of three units that were previously on outage being returned to service.
Eskom will publish another update should any significant changes occur which is likely as a very cold spell bites the country this week.
Breakdowns are currently at 16 115MW of generating capacity while the generating capacity out of service for planned maintenance is 3 766MW.
Over the past 24 hours, a generating unit each at Arnot and Kendal power stations were returned to service. In the same period, a generation unit each at Kriel and Hendrina power stations were taken out of service due to breakdowns. The further delays in returning to service a generating unit at Grootvlei, Hendrina, Majuba and Tutuka power stations are contributing to the current capacity constraints. Eskom teams are working around the clock to return these generating units to service over the next few days.
Eskom latest generation status snapshot – Evening Peak 09/06/2023 (18:20)
- Eskom Availability 27 958 MW
- Total Demand: 30 617 MW
- Loadshedding: 3 060 MW
- Number of OCGT’s Utilised: 11
- Renewable Gen: 499 MW IPP
- Availability (Dispatchable): 1014 MW RES: Wind 288 MW, CSP 206 MW, PV 5 MW Demand Incl: ILS 0 MW, VPS 58
- MW, LS Eskom Availability incl: 0MW C/R & Non-Comm Peak in Peak Sentout: 27 499 MW
Link to Eskom’s own performance dashboard HERE
Author: Bryan Groenendaal
