Eskom war room fixed with restoring plant availability, but stabilisation could be 30 months off

17th February 2015

By: Terence Creamer

Creamer Media Editor

  

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There is currently no shortage of electricity capacity in South Africa, Department of Energy (DoE) acting director-general Dr Wolsey Barnard acknowledged on Tuesday. However, the availability of the country’s installed base had fallen materially, narrowing the supply-demand balance to the point where Eskom was resorting to rotational load shedding to ensure that an unplanned blackout was avoided.

Speaking on behalf of Energy Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson at the seventh Africa Energy Indaba, Barnard revealed that the restoration of plant availability from Eskom’s coal-heavy fleet was currently the main priority of the so-called war room. The war room, which was established by Cabinet in December, included Eskom and government officials, as well as independent energy and project specialists, overseen by Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa.

A “practical programme” had been developed to deal with the maintenance backlog, which was directly responsible for the fall in the fleet’s energy availability factor, which had fallen well below the target of around 85% to below 75%. But Barnard also confirmed that, despite the focus being given to maintenance, it could take between 20 and 30 months to reverse the backlog.

In a recent presentation, Eskom outlined the extent of the regression in plant availability. It showed that, during its 2010 financial year, the capacity unavailable as a result of breakdowns stood at just over 2 000 MW. The performance worsened modestly to around 2 500 MW in the following financial year. But by the 2014 financial year, breakdowns had surged to well over 5 000 MW and the trend has persisted.

During the last few months it has been quite normal for Eskom to report unplanned outages of between 6 000 MW and 11 000 MW. For this reason, despite various capacity expansion programmes that have taken placed since 2006, during which more than 6 000 MW has been added, there was less capacity available currently than was the case ahead of the multibillion-rand build programme.

Adding to the problem was the fact that the Medupi, Kusile and Ingula projects were all well behind schedule, meaning that, besides demand-response initiatives, improving the performance of the current fleet was the main lever available to Eskom to help stabilise the network in the coming two years.

In parallel, the war room was also having positive engagements with big business on ways to lower consumption and boost private generation so as to decrease the frequency and level of load shedding.

PROCUREMENT PROGRAMMES

Government would also push ahead with various procurement programmes to open the way for independent power producer investment in renewable energy, baseload coal, cogeneration and gas.

A request for proposals (RFP) was issued in December for 1 600 MW of baseload coal capacity, with a bid deadline set for June 8.

Barnard said announcements would also be made soon regarding the fourth bid window for renewable energy, with government having already moved to procure around 4 000 MW from 66 projects following three competitive-bidding rounds – some 32 projects, with a collective capacity of 1 500 MW, are already operational.

Government also intended issuing RFPs “next month” for cogeneration projects, while a gas-related RFP should be released by June. Barnard indicated to Engineering News Online that government would be seeking an initial 800 MW of supply from cogeneration sources.

In addition, regional hydropower capacity would also be pursued, with government participating in the technical work required to help unlock the Grand Inga project in the Democratic Republic of Congo by 2022/23.

In the longer term, government remained committed to a new nuclear build programme, with President Jacob Zuma even suggesting that the first new nuclear unit should be operational by 2023.

Barnard indicated that it would be up to Cabinet to decide how nuclear should be procured and by when, with Zuma having again recommitted government to a “fair, transparent, and competitive procurement process”.

He also told Engineering News Online that, besides China, France, Russia, South Korea and the US, other countries had indicated a desire to conclude Inter-Governmental Agreements on nuclear with South Africa and that these would likely be concluded before Cabinet made a final decision on nuclear.

Edited by Creamer Media Reporter

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