Eskom uncertain whether load-shedding will continue this week

now it's 1100 MW when their official twitter said 900MW. Why can't they get and/or keep their facts straight?
 
Zoomzoom said:
now it's 1100 MW when their official twitter said 900MW. Why can't they get and/or keep their facts straight?
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They did not word it correctly but I followed the reports closely. The first indication they gave something was wrong when they said we have lost some of our Mozambique imports and are moving to stage 3. This was around 10am yesterday. Shortly after they confirmed they lost another 900MW and is moving to stage 4.

So looks like their total Mozambique capacity is 1100MW which is gone. That with Kusile,Medupi and Matla unit trips each at at least 600MW explains why we short so much.
 
So how long before Moz can fix the cables? Are we waiting for weather to clear?
 
3WA said:
So how long before Moz can fix the cables? Are we waiting for weather to clear?
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The flooding was quite bad as far as eastern Zimbabwe, and there are several river crossings on the north-south powerline route. I have no details, but probably quite inaccessible terrain too.
 
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3WA said:
So how long before Moz can fix the cables? Are we waiting for weather to clear?
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That would take some time. The Mozambique cable is not the one causing the loadshedding it's just upping the stage. The repair teams needs to descend on the tripped units at the power plants and get the up and running. The ones out for planned maintenance needs to be sped up and fixed then returned to service.
 
cavedog said:
That would take some time. The Mozambique cable is not the one causing the loadshedding it's just upping the stage. The repair teams needs to descend on the tripped units at the power plants and get the up and running. The ones out for planned maintenance needs to be sped up and fixed then returned to service.
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True, the problem is all those tripped unit. More so at the new stations as it isn't even an old equipment issue
 
R13... said:
True, the problem is all those tripped unit. More so at the new stations as it isn't even an old equipment issue
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Yes and that is the sad part. What does that mean when the older power stations trip more and more due to old age. The new ones are just as useless.
 
cavedog said:
Yes and that is the sad part. What does that mean when the older power stations trip more and more due to old age. The new ones are just as useless.
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When old units trip it sometimes you need to replace parts. And parts take time to order.
 
R13... said:
When old units trip it sometimes you need to replace parts. And parts take time to order.
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LOL, you think they have a stock of spare parts on-site for the new units? Granted they probably don't have to re-engineer the parts, like they do for the old units.
 
R13... said:
When old units trip it sometimes you need to replace parts. And parts take time to order.
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Not only that. The Roosevelt sub station has tripped something like 19? times in 2018 and 12? times in 2019.

If they're using the same team every time for repairs they're guaranteeing themselves an income by not fixing the problem once and for all. Particularly since downtime is often weekend or after hours.
 
maumau said:
If they're using the same team every time for repairs they're guaranteeing themselves an income by not fixing the problem once and for all. Particularly since downtime is often weekend or after hours.
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LOL, its like a burst water main. They send a team to dig up the road and fix it. A month later the same pipe bursts 30m further down the road. Repeat the process...
 
The headline is wrong. Should be corrected. What is actually being said is Eskom is uncertain when loadshedding will be reduced, not whether there will be loadshedding.

Due to this large deficit in electricity capacity, Etzinger said he was uncertain when Eskom will be able to reduce load-shedding.
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Eskom's emphasis on Mozambique is a big distraction!

Stage 4 requires 4000MW to be cut. Imports from Mozambique account for just over a quarter of that (1100MW). Most of the lack of power can therefore be attributed to power stations in SA and we'd still be having Stage 3 loadshedding even if Mozambique wasn't an issue.
 
Gordon_R said:
LOL, you think they have a stock of spare parts on-site for the new units? Granted they probably don't have to re-engineer the parts, like they do for the old units.
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What I was getting at is that you shouldn't be suffering failures that need parts replaced at new plants. Not always anyway. One of the biggest issues at power stations is boiler tube leaks, more so at old plants. The problem is worsened by poor quality demin water. The last time I was at an Eskom power station their demin water plants and quality as well as their feed water plants were the cleanest places I've seen anywhere in the world. Not sure that's still the case. Now when tubes fail, you need to plug them and that means, shutting down, allowing cool down and then getting to plugging. All time consuming operations. That's assuming you're a well oiled machine to begin with.

And then there are of course a myriad other possible things that can go wrong.
 
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