The recovery plan at State-owned utility Eskom is continuing but, with a number of challenges concerning dam and diesel levels, and units being offline, Stage 2 load-shedding is still set to continue as planned until 05:00 on Monday, group CE André de Ruyter said during a media briefing on February 3.

He noted that the utility would, however, continue to assess the situation and, depending on how quickly it is able to bring units back and replenish dam levels, may move this timeline forward.

Another briefing will be held on February 4 to provide a further update.

On February 1, Engineering News reported that a recent resurgence of unplanned breakdowns across Eskom’s coal fleet had resulted in a serious depletion of emergency water and diesel reserves to the point where the utility had to start implementing Stage 2 load-shedding.

De Ruyter on February 3 said there had been a slight improvement from the previous day’s figures – where unplanned losses had risen to 13 462 MW.

He also noted that dam levels had recovered somewhat to an adequate level for the day.

This, he explained, would be managed so that the levels were replenished in the upper dams over the weekend. By Monday morning, there should be sufficient reserve capacity.

COO Jan Oberholzer elaborated that dam levels were managed to enable these to remain at about the same level; however, he emphasised that it was important that Eskom did not allow levels to deteriorate further and that it began replenishing the upper dams.

Stage 2 load-shedding is assisting the utility in improving the upper dam levels, he indicated. It is anticipated that by Monday at 05:00, when load-shedding is planned to stop, the dams will be full and will assist Eskom to deal with any challenges that may arise during the week.

Moreover, it is aiming to have diesel levels up by then, especially at the Ankerlig plant.

De Ruyter said the utility had managed to improve the stockholding of diesel at its open-cycle gas turbine plants, Ankerlig and Gourikwa, with these plants providing reserve buffer capacity in the event of a major system upset.

De Ruyter said Eskom had seen some coal-fired units back in service, however, it also lost some others. “There are plans in place to return more units to service and, recovery at the moment is anticipated."

“However, I have to point out that there is still a possibility that we may lose further units, and, therefore, the guidance at the moment remains that we will maintain Stage 2 load-shedding until 05:00 on Monday morning.”

KUSILE

Problems persist at Kusile, with De Ruyter highlighting poor performance from the plant, with three commercial units not producing at all, and only Unit 4 – a non-commercial unit – running at the moment.

Oberholzer said the non-commercial units were successfully returned; however, Unit 1 remains a considerable problem, as it tripped owing to a controller issue on the turbine.

The utility is still seeking a solution to this unit, with engineers and the original-equipment manufacturer working on this, but nothing had materialised as yet.

Moreover, Eskom is getting ready to bring Unit 2 back from a long outage, but this could pose challenges owing to design modifications that were made during this time. This unit is slated for return on February 4.

Other units at Kusile are anticipated to be back towards the end of this week, or early next week.

In terms of Eskom’s other stations, group executive for generation Philip Dukashe said units that tripped at Arnot and Tutuka were anticipated to be returning to service on February 3, with minor tweaks having to be implemented before they returned to service and were synchronised.

“We are continuing with our recovery, and a number of big units are expected to return toward the end of this week, or early next, which provides confidence to us in terms of our recovery,” he added.