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No blackouts for 21 days in South Africa

By Green Building Africa - Net Carbon Zero Buildings and Cities April 18, 2024 No Comments

One of Eskom's oldest coal fired power stations, Hendrina, is located approximately 40km south of Middelburg at the town of Hendrina in Mpumalanga, South Africa. At the time it was built in the early 70"s it was the largest power station in the country with a generating capacity of 2000MW. It is now well passed its sell-bye date. South Africa’s coal fired power stations are breaching minimum emissions standards but shutting them down may jeopardise energy supply. Image credit: Eskom

South Africa’s state owned energy utility, Eskom, reports that loadshedding will continue to be suspended until further notice.
This follows a period of 21 consecutive days, and as of midday today, 535 hours without loadshedding.
This is a result of sustained generation capacity, adequate emergency reserves, and reduced electricity demand from the grid.

The last time Eskom achieved a similar milestone was in June 2022, with 20 consecutive days without loadshedding. While Eskom acknowledges this milestone, it remains committed to the continued implementation of its Generation Operational Recovery Plan to reduce and ultimately eliminate loadshedding.

Unplanned outages account for 14 264MW of generating capacity, while the capacity out of service for planned maintenance is 5 370MW.

Eskom Power Station General Managers and their teams are working diligently to ensure the recovery of additional generating capacity by bringing units from unplanned outages and planned maintenance back into service as soon as possible. A total of 2 070MW of generating capacity is planned to be returned to service by Friday.

Author: Bryan Groenendaal

Source: Eskom

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Green Building Africa - Net Carbon Zero Buildings and Cities

Green Building Africa promotes the need for net carbon zero buildings and cities in Africa. We are fiercely independent and encourage outlying thinkers to contribute to the #netcarbonzero movement. Climate change is upon us and now is the time to react in a more diverse and broader approach to sustainability in the built environment. We challenge architects, property developers, urban planners, renewable energy professionals and green building specialists. We also challenge the funding houses and regulators and the role they play in facilitating investment into green projects. Lastly, we explore and investigate new technology and real-time data to speed up the journey in realising a net carbon zero environment for our children.