No-win situation for Eskom

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Repairs or maintenance?
Those are two different things.
If they're taking them out for repairs then fine.
If they're taking them offline for maintenance, they're manufacturing loadshedding; for whatever reason.
 
porchrat said:
They're designed to handle peaks. They're not designed to run for 2 days straight to replenish the pumped storage reserves Eskom burnt through because they didn't want to raise loadshedding levels. Only then to have loadshedding levels raised ANYWAY to replenish the diesel they just burnt.

You're out of pumped storage? OK... raise loadshedding levels and use the extra space to restore pumped storage reserves. Don't burn the diesel for 2 days straight.
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Well they aren't only diesel, plus it could be the generators for koeberg as they are part of the grid. They would do the cost analysis and see if running the OCGT at a certain output would justify it or upping or lowering the stage of shedding.
Remember shedding puts strain on systems, so they might try stave off that. Plus the costs to the economy at higher stages also starts to eat away at any cost the OCGT would be, it's not like they are running all of them all the time. They may need to run some over 2 days for various reasons we don't know.
It's not every day all day, all the time.
 
Lupus said:
Well they aren't only diesel, plus it could be the generators for koeberg as they are part of the grid. They would do the cost analysis and see if running the OCGT at a certain output would justify it or upping or lowering the stage of shedding.
Remember shedding puts strain on systems, so they might try stave off that. Plus the costs to the economy at higher stages also starts to eat away at any cost the OCGT would be, it's not like they are running all of them all the time. They may need to run some over 2 days for various reasons we don't know.
It's not every day all day, all the time.
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No we know the reasons they run them for 2 days. It's to replenish pumped storage reserves. Then they increase the loadshedding levels anyway, leading to the equipment damage you mentioned etc. in order to restore the diesel they've just burnt through. Because, at some points, they burn through more diesel than they can physically acquire each day. This too, is madness.

Oh you think they do cost analysis on whether or not the diesel burning is justified? You think Eskom is being run that responsibly? It must be making money hand over fist with all this responsible analysis its doing...

On average for the last year they've burnt about R3 billion per month in diesel.

Their annual loss for the last financial year was around R27.9 billion.

If Eskom didn't burn diesel they would not be running at a loss. (and look, I'm not saying they can avoid burning diesel entirely, using OCGTs for the occasional peak sparingly is perfectly normal, I'm just pointing out the scale of the diesel spend)

They're losing R7/kWh for the electricity they produce using diesel. They often do this for days on end. It's idiotic.

The cost to the economy is not Eskom's concern. Running in a sustainable manner and returning itself to a functional state should be its number one concern right now. If you can't generate the power sustainably and responsibly, then don't.
 
Found this comment interesting, as I've often read the R7/kwh figure bandied around for Eskom's own OCGTs (obviously diesel costs vary over time but still v expensive):
“Eskom had skimped on its own diesel generation due to the depletion of its fuel budget – but was forced into action to try and replenish the critically low pumped storage reserves,” Jordaan said.

This means that the 55 GWh, of pumped storage via diesel generation, on Friday and Saturday at R10/kWh, caused a minimum of R7/kWh loss to Eskom – equating to R385 million, which the company may try to recoup in future tariff hikes.
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I guess they thought they could refill them over the weekend when demand was a bit lower but a bunch of units went offline from Fri into Sat and they ended up in a tight (and expensive spot)?

I don't look at these graphs every day but it's been a while since I can recall seeing all that light-pink IPP OCGT. I wonder if it comes out of a different line item in the budget and in NERSA calculations, ie Eskom isn't directly buying the diesel for those but it's electricity bought from IPPs....
 
Lupus said:
The red is OCGT generation, there is 2 days last week and Monday that have quite a bit yes, not optimal correct. But it's not every day, all day as people seem to believe.
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The tan colour is also OCGT. They are just not owned by Eskom, but Eskom still has to pay via IPP>

Have a look what Eskom says:
Sales volumes declined by 5.9% to 91.9TWh (September 2022: 97.6TWh), with local and international sales decreasing by 5.1TWh and 0.6TWh respectively. The decline was largely a result of supply constraints, which led to loadshedding and load curtailment, coupled with lower electricity demand from customers at times due to difficult economic conditions and the impact of increased embedded self-generation such as solar PV and wind. However, sales volumes would have declined further without the increased use of OCGTs to minimise loadshedding.

We experienced a decline in sales across every major customer category, apart from the mining sector that saw increased demand arising from higher production due to favourable commodity prices. Ongoing risks for sales volumes include continued generation supply constraints, the impact of embedded self-generation, as well as theft through illegal connections, meter tampering and ghost vending, which are recognised as non-technical losses.

Primary energy costs grew by 10.1%, increasing to R85.1 billion (September 2022: R77.3 billion). This was despite a 5.3% decrease in production, from 114.1TWh to 108TWh, largely arising from poor generation performance at Eskom’s coal-fired power stations, requiring the use of production from more expensive OCGT and IPP sources. We experienced a 5.6% growth in coal generation costs arising from inflationary cost pressures, driven by a 10.2% increase in the coal purchase price. Expenditure on IPP programmes other than OCGTs increased to R17.4 billion, largely due to higher production of 8.9TWh from these sources (September 2022: R15.2 billion to produce 7.7TWh)

A combined R18 billion was incurred to produce 2.9TWh from Eskom-owned and IPP OCGTs (September 2022: R15.8 billion to produce 2.1TWh). Favourable diesel price movements during the past six months enabled higher production from OCGTs than originally anticipated. Delays in other IPP programmes, such as the Standard Offer Programme, Emergency Generation Programme and the Risk Mitigation IPP Procurement Programme (RMIPPPP), which have not yet delivered capacity in line with expectations, further contributed to the reliance on OCGTs during the period.
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https://www.eskom.co.za/wp-content/...y_on_Eskom_interim_results_September_2023.pdf

As I said, they are absolutely fuuked. They are forced to rely on OCGT to counteract the losses from load shedding and people using solar.
 
konfab said:
Burning the diesel to hit stage 2 is retarded, but fundamentally they have a massive revenue problem whenever they do loadshedding.

The OCGT are a resource that should only really be used during the peaks. Which is what they are designed to do. They are not designed to be run to cover continuous breakdowns.
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Not technically correct: the OCGTs' primary function is voltage regulation between the national and local grids (the Eastern Cape in the case of Port Rex) and to restart the grid in the event of a total blackout.

They are also capable of supplementing power to the grid during peak demand, but they were never meant to be used often, as is currently the case. IOW, they were designed and built as an emergency back-up.
 
Supervan II said:
Not technically correct: the OCGTs' primary function is voltage regulation between the national and local grids (the Eastern Cape in the case of Port Rex) and to restart the grid in the event of a total blackout.

They are also capable of supplementing power to the grid during peak demand, but they were never meant to be used often, as is currently the case. IOW, they were designed and built as an emergency back-up.
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Port Rex uses kerosene vs Diesel
 
Lupus said:
Yup as far as I know they are, now if we could just convert to CCGT we'd be able to run them full time like the UK does :)
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Ah so they eventually did the conversion? When Dedisa and Avon started up a few years ago I remember them saying they would use diesel initially but with a possible future conversion to conversion to gas-fired, seemed pretty vague at the time.
 
Supervan II said:
Not technically correct: the OCGTs' primary function is voltage regulation between the national and local grids (the Eastern Cape in the case of Port Rex) and to restart the grid in the event of a total blackout.

They are also capable of supplementing power to the grid during peak demand, but they were never meant to be used often, as is currently the case. IOW, they were designed and built as an emergency back-up.
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No it is not. They are there to provide peaking power. Being used as a synchronous condenser is a bonus that you get when you have large bits of metal hooked up to a motor on a grid. You basically disconnect input power and you have one.
Eskom’s new OCGT (Open Cycle Gas Turbine) power stations are powered by liquid fuel (diesel). They are intended to be used during peak periods and emergency situations to supply electricity into the Eskom National Grid. In addition to generating electricity (Generating Mode), the machines installed during the first phases of each station are able to regulate fluctuations in network voltage (SCO – Synchronous Condenser Mode). Both Ankerlig and Gourikwa Power Stations are part of Peaking Generation, a business unit in the Generation Division. Peaks in demand are normally between 06:00 and 08:00 in the morning and 17:00 and 20:00 in the ev
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https://www.eskom.co.za/wp-content/...nkerlig-Gourikwa-Technical-Brochure-Rev-9.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronous_condenser

You can actually do all the work needed by them with solid state stuff, which is basically a monster capacitor and inductor bank:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Static_VAR_compensator
 
konfab said:
The problem is Eskom cannot afford it. When they have load shedding, they make less money.

As the first poster in this thread said:



They are f__Ked.
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Even when there's no load shedding they're not making money. Demand dropped because everyone is ditching them. They'll eventually just be left with non-payers while they hike the price to R20/kWh or whatever...
 
Lupus said:
Those don't use diesel, plus actually work out cheaper then the diesel OCGTs.
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Which ones don't use diesel (besides Port Rex)?
I know Avon at least also uses diesel.
They're all OCGT afaik because it's apparently more cost effective here in SA. UNLESS of course they actually planned them as baseload in the first place, then CCGT might make sense. But then you'd need a good supply of gas.
 
Eskom might not win, but everyone else is losing at their expense because of the ANC.
 
Mike Hoxbig said:
Even when there's no load shedding they're not making money. Demand dropped because everyone is ditching them. They'll eventually just be left with non-payers while they hike the price to R20/kWh or whatever...
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I'd be interested to know what the cut off point is where they lose basically all the paying customers. Right now low end users like myself it doesn't make much sense to move to solar.

Eventually though the amount I pay Eskom is going eclipse the payments on the loan I need for solar.

Then Eskom can increase the cost of electricity to R10 000/kWh and it will mean nothing.
 
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