New data shows Eskom repairs are struggling

Hanno Labuschagne

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New data shows Eskom repairs are struggling

New data has laid bare the dismal state of Eskom's coal-fired power station fleet and raised questions over how effective its plant maintenance programme is, The Sunday Times reported.

The data tracked the performance of Eskom's generating units between August 2020 and October 2021 at fourteen of its fifteen coal-fired power stations.
 

SilverCode

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Don't worry, I hear Cyril is going to be putting together a ministerial task team to investigate and come up with a potential plan. I'm sure we are in good hands and a solution will be found quickly and implemented just as efficiently.
 

BBSA

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So is it the repairs which are struggling or the people doing the repairs?
 

RVQ

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Don't worry, I hear Cyril is going to be putting together a ministerial task team to investigate and come up with a potential plan. I'm sure we are in good hands and a solution will be found quickly and implemented just as efficiently.

....and if this task team is unsuccessful in solving the issues, a task team to investigate this task team will be established....
 

RudderVator

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Eskom spokesperson Sikonathi Mantshantsha told The Sunday Times the declining performance was to be expected due to the age of the power stations.
Such BS. All about how much money and time you are willing or can invest. Eskom has neither left anymore.

Any man-made machine from cars to aircraft can be repaired and kept going almost indefinitely as long as you have parts and knowledge.
Why are 1960s model Cessna's or Pipers still flying just fine?

The most significant issue is if it becomes cheaper to build a new better plant instead of trying to revive an old one.
 

Shadowchaser1

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Another bling world. Struggle. My take from this that there's no backup system? Some other bad news is that this situation is going to dump SA into a recession, if you not there already. Downgrade to Junk is very definitely on the cards as well. Unreal that the cycle keeps repeating itself every couple of years,
 

_kabal_

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Don't worry, I hear Cyril is going to be putting together a ministerial task team to investigate and come up with a potential plan. I'm sure we are in good hands and a solution will be found quickly and implemented just as efficiently.
Plan summary:

something something something legacy of apartheid something something
 

Johand

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Such BS. All about how much money and time you are willing or can invest. Eskom has neither left anymore.

Any man-made machine from cars to aircraft can be repaired and kept going almost indefinitely as long as you have parts and knowledge.
Why are 1960s model Cessna's or Pipers still flying just fine?

The most significant issue is if it becomes cheaper to build a new better plant instead of trying to revive an old one.
Rebuilding a boiler is a bit more complicated than redoing an engine I think on some of these boilers there is probably more patch than tube and it does't make sense to recondition them.

Proper refurbishment jobs will also probably mean taking units offline for a year or so and in the current situation would not work (if you started 15 years ago then it would have been fine).
 

RudderVator

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Rebuilding a boiler is a bit more complicated than redoing an engine I think on some of these boilers there is probably more patch than tube and it does't make sense to recondition them.

Proper refurbishment jobs will also probably mean taking units offline for a year or so and in the current situation would not work (if you started 15 years ago then it would have been fine).
Have a point. They ran out of time and money.

Time in the sense if they had a whole power station or more parked somewhere on the grid as extra capacity to take one offline and do a whole 6-12 month refurbishment project and slowly but surely refurbish them one by one.
 

cn@

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Have a point. They ran out of time and money.
They ran out of more than just time and money. Since years ago, they have also run out of intelligence, knowledge, wisdom and just plain old good common sense. This is why they are struggling.
 
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