Eskom holds off shutting down Koeberg – but not for long
Power utility Eskom said that it has delayed its plan to take unit 1 of the Koeberg Nuclear Power Station offline to later on Thursday.
This is so that the group has more time to try and stabilise its power grid amid stage 6 load shedding.
Eskom was forced to implement stage 6 load shedding on Wednesday morning after suffering several more breakdowns at its power stations across the country.
Stage 6 load shedding is expected to continue throughout the day on Thursday, with Eskom hoping to move down to stage 5 by Friday (8 December).
The elevated levels of load shedding come just as the group was planning to take Koeberg Unit 1 offline for refurbishment and maintenance. The initial plan was to start taking the unit offline on Wednesday evening and have it off-grid on Thursday morning.
Koeberg Unit 1 is the most reliable generating unit in the Eskom fleet, the group previously said, and it contributes close to 1,000MW – equal to one stage of load shedding – to the national grid.
When it is eventually pulled offline, it will remove this capacity from the grid for approximately six months, exacerbating an already tight energy supply situation.
According to Eskom COO, Jan Oberholzer, Koeberg being offline is only one of the repair and maintenance projects being undertaken, and in total approximately 2,300MW is at risk of being offline at any point for the next 12 months.
In addition to this, units at Kusile and Medupi, totalling 3,000MW, are also offline due to faults, critical breakdowns or – in the case of Medupi – severe damage from an explosion in 2021. These units may be offline until the end of 2023 to mid-2024, the group warned.
Eskom’s load shedding forecast for the next year indicates that the power utility needs to keep unplanned outages or breakdowns below 13,000MW to stave off the worst of load shedding – however, the group has been unable to keep outages below 16,000MW, which represents its ‘worst case scenario’ in the plan.
Breakdowns hit over 19,000MW on Wednesday.
At these elevated levels of outages, high levels of load shedding – stage 4 or higher – are expected to be commonplace every week over the next year, with Eskom needing billions of rands to spend on diesel to just keep things under control.
However, even this scenario is unrealistic, as there is simply not enough money in Eskom’s coffers or in the national fiscus to procure the needed amount of diesel, and the power utility would also not be able to physically transport and burn through the diesel, even if it could get it.
Oberholzer has hammered the point that the only way to resolve load shedding in South Africa is to build new capacity to take the strain off the overloaded and ageing power stations in its fleet.
Plans are underway to procure more energy generation, with thousands of megawatts of new energy – particularly renewables – in the pipeline. But, at best, these new projects are 18 months away from adding power to the grid, not accounting for any crises, missteps or interference along the way.
Analysts and energy experts – and Eskom itself – have warned South Africans to expect prolonged periods of load shedding for the foreseeable future.
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