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Vice President David Mabuza says that the introduction of the Medupi and Kusile power plants into South Africa’s power grid will help ease the country’s load shedding.
Mabuza, who was answering an oral question at the National Council of Provinces on Thursday (September 3), said the latest round of load shedding was due to maintenance problems and an aging fleet.
“Our people will understand that we are dealing with a very old fleet and from time to time we are dealing with operational problems,” Mabuza said.
However, he said the Medupi power plant is scheduled to be fully operational by the end of the year and will gradually reduce pressure on electricity generation.
He added that the introduction of Independent Power Producers (IPP) will also help with the country’s power outages.
Oral response of the Vice President of the National Council of Provinces https://t.co/A72DhjDDHH
– David D Mabuza (@DDMabuza) September 3, 2020
It is unclear how Medupi will ease South Africa’s energy pressures, as the station’s final unit was synchronized with the national grid in August 2019 and is already producing power.
Floods in December 2019 caused station failures and caused Eskom to have to extract 6,000 MW from the national grid, leading the country to its highest load shedding stage, Stage 6, at that time. .
The Medupi and Kusile power plants have faced significant construction delays and have been marred by allegations of overspending and poor development.
In a parliamentary briefing before the Standing Committee on Appropriations on Wednesday (September 2), Eskom said that one of the key reasons for the cost overrun was that insufficient “ initial ” work was done on the projects, leading to a “ incomplete scoping ” before awarding contracts.
The projects also faced time constraints due to increased energy demand, while additional work that was not part of the original construction plan led to delays. Kusile will be completed in 2022.
Other issues that were identified as contributing to the delay include:
- Changes in environmental standards and requirements;
- Construction began without a firm design;
- The projects stalled due to the availability of funds;
- South Africa does not have the skills and experience to build ‘mega-projects’.
- The strikes caused significant delays;
- Contractor performance and quality control were poor;
- Resource limitations;
- Investigations on corruption;
- Low productivity.
On Friday (September 4), Eskom said it implemented load shedding on stage 3 from 08:00 to 22:00 on Friday, with power outages that will continue for the remainder of the weekend.
The reduction to stage 3 is due to reduced demand and improved weather after the country faced the reduction of load from stage 4 on Thursday, he said.
“To replenish the emergency generation reserves, load shedding will continue through the weekend. The system remains unreliable and vulnerable, ”he said.
Generating units have returned at the Tutuka, Matla, Majuba and Camden power plants, however two additional units have suffered breakdowns. Unplanned outages amount to 11,185MW, with another 5,040MW under planned maintenance.
For those who live in major metropolitan areas, you can check when they will be affected:
To access other load shedding programs, Eskom has made them available at loadhedding.eskom.co.za.
Smartphone users can also download the EskomSePush app to receive push notifications when load shedding is implemented, as well as the hours the area you are in will be off.
Read: Eskom suspends plant managers amid power outages
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