Photo by: Duane Daws
State power utility Eskom began implementing load-shedding at 8:00 on Sunday November 2 and indicated that the system was projected to be “severely constrained” for the coming week, owing to the loss of 1 800 MW at the Majuba power station, in Mpumalanga.
The Majuba loss was caused by damage to the central coal storage silo on Saturday, but was additional to ongoing unplanned losses that had risen materially since the conclusion of the low-maintenance winter period. Eskom began issuing ‘Power Alerts’ earlier in the week and reported unplanned outages of above 7 000 MW.
The stage 1 load shedding, which would be implemented in line with published schedules, would endure from 8:00 in the morning until 22:00. It was the second load-shedding incident of 2014, with rotational shedding having also been implemented on March 6. The March event, which was caused by coal delivery problems, was the first since 2008.
Eskom said a silo that houses over 10 000 t of Majuba coal cracked on Saturday afternoon impacting coal supplies to all six units at the power station and resulted in the power station operating at reduced capacity of 1 300 MW.
No injuries were reported and Eskom was in the process of dispatching mobile coal feeders to site.
The utility indicated that it would provide regular updates on the status of the power system and would be hosting a media conference on Monday.
In September, Eskom informed Parliamentarians that it would take time to arrest the current high levels of unplanned outages, revealing that 32 of its 87 coal-fired generating units required “major surgery”, while four were in a “critical condition”.
It also cautioned that an additional 7 400 MW of capacity was required to provide it with the cushion it needed to enable it to deal with its maintenance requirement.
In addition, while Medupi’s first 794 MW unit was scheduled to be synchronised to the grid on December 24, Unit 6 was expected to be operating at stable levels only by winter 2015. It would also take the introduction of a number of units from both Medupi and Kusile to stabilise the system, which meant that the system constraints could endure for up to five years.