Eskom drops winter bombshell
Eskom chief executive, Brian Dames says that the impending winter will be different to previous winters, as the group will have to perform long duration planned maintenance during the coldest months.
Dames said on Monday (22 April) that between April 2013 to 31 July 2013 the group’s power system will be extremely tight.
Going into winter, Eskom will for the first time plan to do extensive maintenance work, even during the coldest months, to improve reliability.
“We have reached a point where we cannot continue to defer planned generation maintenance any longer because this could have severe consequences,” he said.
“This winter will be different in that generation maintenance will be done and not deferred. Eskom is committed to maintaining at least 9 generation units between April and August to ensure the long term sustainability of the plant,” Dames said.
He pointed out that the group’s power system has been very tight during summer because of reduced imports and high levels of unplanned outages, including Koeberg Unit 1, and this has meant less space to do maintenance work.
“The performance of Eskom’s own generation fleet is volatile and that of the Cahora Bassa scheme has become unpredictable,” he said.
“We will implement a Generation maintenance strategy which is based on an 80% availability; 10% planned maintenance and 10% unplanned outages over five years to maintain the current fleet, meet environmental requirements and achieve predictable performance from our existing assets,” the CEO said.
Dames noted that Eskom has sufficient capacity to meet the demand most of the day, but once again, the group urged customers to reduce demand, particularly over evening peak from 5pm-9pm.
If that can be reduced by as much as 2000MW, the security of electricity supply will be adequate, Eskom said.
At the end of February, the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) approved an annual increase of 8% in electricity tariffs.
Typical winter demand profile
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