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By Sameer Naik, Tanya Waterworth 
9h ago
Johannesburg: Expect continuous blackouts every week until at least December. That’s the bleak outlook for the country’s precarious power supply from energy expert Lungile Mashele.
While she, along with several other experts, welcomed Eskom’s surprise move yesterday that saw two top executives at the Tutuka and Kendal coal-fired power plants suspended in a week in which the country was mired in power outages. energy from Stage 4, Mashele emphasized that there is more Eskom must do.
“Eskom has been losing several generating units and this is mainly because its units are old and volatile and were destined to be decommissioned in 2017,” Mashele said.
“We had a conversation with (Eskom spokesperson) Sikonathi Mantshantsha yesterday and he was basically confirming, in essence, that we are holding assets that we should have dismantled a long time ago. So we are throwing money down the drain … We should focus on new assets that we should invest in. This is a key reason why we are having so many breakdowns.
“We are also heading into our summer maintenance, so we are definitely going to experience a load reduction until at least December. The outlook is very bleak and a load reduction is expected every week. “
Mashele also did not rule out the blackouts of stage 6. “It is very possible that we could go to stage 6 if we continue to lose more generation assets like now. This week alone we lost 21% of our installed capacity and all we need to move to stage 6 is if we lose an additional 2,000 megawatts (MW) on top of that. So we are definitely in trouble. “
While Eskom is “checking and changing management and people,” it is not enough.
“We do not have the necessary skills to operate, operate and maintain plants. We also have a hard time getting OEMs in. The other thing Eskom urgently needs to work on is getting Medupi and Kusile to their optimum capacity, he said.
“We are currently losing units at those plants, which doesn’t make sense. It has to do with welding and repairing leaks in the boiler tubes. These two plants need to be fixed, there is no excuse. Eskom says they are looking to bring Medupi back to full capacity by November 2020 and Kusile by September 2021, so we’ll see. “
Yesterday’s announcement of the suspensions provided a ray of hope for South Africans struggling with a depressed economy in the wake of the Covid-19 lockdown. The decision to suspend the power plant managers of two of the largest generating plants was confirmed in a strongly worded statement by Eskom yesterday, when the country moved to stage 3.
Citing unplanned breakdowns that led to a power demand deficit of roughly 3,000 MW, compounded by increased demand due to cold weather, Eskom said that while its aging fleet “is plagued by inherited problems of neglect and skipped maintenance, and therefore therefore, it is susceptible to unpredictable breakdowns. It is also true that the situation is aggravated by serious problems of apathetic behavior on the part of some managers ”.
The Eskom Board, in close collaboration with the executive management team led by the group’s chief executive, Andre de Ruyter, supported the suspension of the two directors pending disciplinary investigations, adding that “further interventions are being made in the Kriel and Duvha power plants.
“Commitments have been made to other power plant managers to ensure that the previous culture of weak consequence management is no longer the norm and is no longer tolerated,” he said.
Energy expert Chris Yelland said the suspensions were a positive move, indicating that Eskom would hold staff, especially top management, accountable.
“They are very well paid people at Eskom and there is a lot of mediocrity there. There is a drive for a new culture of responsibility and under the new leadership, they expect excellence from high pay. During the Zuma era of (Matshela) Koko and (Brian) Molefe, there were many wrong people placed in positions at Eskom and immensely high turnover.
“The bottom line was that there was a culture of complacency and a lot of problems at the top management level. Now it’s about demanding levels of excellence and high performance. They have to act and there are no excuses, ”Yelland said. “Leadership has to change the entire culture of an organization of 44,000 people.
“The plants are old and damaged and current maintenance can only stabilize the system. We need new power plants and new energy sources like solar and wind. It’s not going to happen overnight, but the suspension of the power plant managers is sending a very strong signal internally to Eskom and to the public.
Economist Mike Schussler agreed. “Eskom needed to hold some people accountable, especially those who have been there for a while.”
While Eskom gave the grim warning this week that cargo shedding is likely to continue through 2022, Schussler said: “There has been a lot of economic damage during the shutdown and with cargo shedding on top of that, it will take much more than two years. for the economy to recover. Each day of load reduction delays a full economic recovery by three days, so this week alone it has done three weeks of damage to the economy. “
Lockdown regulations combined with ongoing blackouts are having a huge impact on the economy. “We still have a curfew and when we don’t, the burden is reduced. How are companies supposed to operate? This economy is in such a deep hole and we will not get out of it without real reforms, and not just rhetoric, ”he said.
Energy analyst Ted Blom was not encouraged by the suspensions, emphasizing that taking responsibility for load shedding “started from the top.”
He accused Eskom of misleading the public and implementing stage 6 on Wednesday and Thursday nights, with a drop of more than 5,000MW on both nights. Any continuous blackout exceeding 5000 MW was considered stage 6.
“Eskom has been misleading the public and misrepresented the level of load reduction. I have publicly challenged you on this. The quality of maintenance is pathetic and there will be a continuous load shedding for the next five years at least, ”Blom said Friday.
Ongoing blackouts are expected to continue through the weekend into stage 2, and Eskom said yesterday that “the system remains unreliable and vulnerable.”
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