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Eskom has launched a new portal where South Africans can view system status and other related data.
This follows OUTA requests to Eskom to make information on the performance of your power system publicly available in a user-friendly form.
OUTA said it has spent months trying to obtain this information. “Eskom initially delayed the response, then rejected our request,” he said.
On April 3, OUTA submitted a request in terms of the Law for the Promotion of Access to Information (PAIA) with Eskom.
They requested that a list of specific information on the performance of the power system be made available to the public.
The information requested included hourly details of the energy produced by each plant, details of availability, planned maintenance, unplanned breakdowns and emissions.
“Five months after we requested that a list of power system performance information be released on the state of Eskom, a limited amount was finally made available to the public,” OUTA said.
“While this is a good start, the information being provided now is still far from that provided by Eskom peers around the world,” said Chris Yelland, OUTA’s energy advisor.
Yelland said information on power system performance is important to electricity customers, businesses, mining, industry, and the general public.
“Furthermore, the public cannot be expected to just idly watch as billions of rand in taxpayer money go to bail out Eskom over the next decade,” he said.
Eskom data provided
Yelland provided a preliminary assessment of Eskom’s data compared to what OUTA requested:
- OUTA requested an hourly data feed so that it could produce its own dashboards on what customers want and need to know. Eskom has introduced its own dashboard based on what Eskom wants the public to see.
- OUTA requested granularity at the power system level, technology level and power station level, and in turn at the generating unit level at each power station. Information is provided only at the system level, with limited technology granularity and no power plant granularity.
- Zoom, pan, trend analysis or data download functions are not provided.
- No information is provided on the energy availability factor (EAF) at the system, technology, power plant or generating unit level (although the system-level EAF can be derived after some calculations).
- No information is provided on primary energy use, water use, primary energy reserve level, diesel tank level or water level.
- No real-time environmental information is provided on emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides or particulates, only monthly historical reports.
- Several parameters have a limited time resolution (for example, daily, not hourly as requested).
- There are no correlation analysis facilities, for example, allowing one dataset to be placed alongside another dataset with the same time period for trend and correlation analysis and comparisons.
- The way the data is presented is rudimentary and not in line with current IT best practices seen in good commercially available dashboard software systems. Eskom could have leapt into a really great information system dashboard based on what is standard practice today.
“In OUTA’s view, Eskom should focus on providing a complete, automated, hourly raw data feed,” Yelland said.
“The benefits of increased transparency, benchmarking, public and peer pressure would be a great driver for positive performance improvement and attitude change within Eskom.”
The charts below provide an overview of some of the data that Eskom is currently providing.
Lock demand tracking
The graph indicates how the actual demand during the lockdown compares to the expected demand before the lockout was announced.
You can see that there was a significant reduction in demand, which gradually declined as we moved towards lower levels.
Maximum weekly demand
The weekly maximum demand is displayed for the current and previous financial year. Peak demand is calculated as the maximum of the hourly average values for each week.
Accumulation of the station during the last 7 days
This shows how resources were used to increase demand during the last 7 days, and includes both the generation and demand resources that Eskom has contracts with.
Exercise load factor (IPP OCGT)
The relationship between the energy generated during a specific time and the maximum generation capacity during the same period is shown for the OCGT of IPP.
Renewable generation per hour
Hourly renewable generation by resource type for the current and previous month. This only reflects renewables owned by or with which Eskom has contracts. Integrated generation is not included.
Unplanned weekly outages
This is a trend of unplanned weekly outages (including other outages) for the current financial year (full weeks are used). It indicates the average trend, in addition to showing the spread of these types of cuts.
Now read: Eskom accused of lying about shedding loads
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