Oberholzer supports coal plant life-extension, but casts doubt on EAF target

Jan

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Extending life of old Eskom coal power stations the "responsible" strategy

Eskom’s outgoing chief operating officer, Jan Oberholzer, says he supports the idea of extending the life of some of the utility’s ageing coal-fired power plants, but believes that its current target for improving their performance by the end of March next year is unrealistic.

Speaking before news broke of Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa’s controversial proposal to revise the shutdown schedule for some of the oldest plants, Oberholzer described the minister’s earlier public comments on the strategy as “responsible”, given the country’s worsening shortage of generation capacity.
 
What I've noticed is that everyone talks about fixing old power stations to meet our energy needs. But even if you were to fix them and get them up to an EAF of say 80%, you are unlikely to actually meet our energy needs.

The old power stations were built to meet the energy needs of the 1980s.

The "new" power stations which were supposed to be finished like 10 years ago, would meet the energy requirements of 10 years ago.

So unless they actually build new power stations in 2030 when they finally fix everything (lol), we are still going to not have enough electricity because we are catering for a 20 year old energy need.
 
SilverCode said:
What I've noticed is that everyone talks about fixing old power stations to meet our energy needs. But even if you were to fix them and get them up to an EAF of say 80%, you are unlikely to actually meet our energy needs.

The old power stations were built to meet the energy needs of the 1980s.

The "new" power stations which were supposed to be finished like 10 years ago, would meet the energy requirements of 10 years ago.

So unless they actually build new power stations in 2030 when they finally fix everything (lol), we are still going to not have enough electricity because we are catering for a 20 year old energy need.
Click to expand...
We are using less electricity now with double the population than 20 years ago. So if they just fix what they broke then there is no problem.
 
ThinkCentre said:
I found this article to be a bit of an assurance in some way! Just one thing. Load shedding is not leaving us soon!
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Yep, but a worthy improvement in just a few months is now more possible. Too late for winter though, although I think it will be better than the pessimists say.
 
wingnut771 said:
We are using less electricity now with double the population than 20 years ago. So if they just fix what they broke then there is no problem.
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Not all is broken. It is old and end of life.
More capacity should have been added.
 
Brian_G said:
Experts stated last week their examinations revealed that new tech can still not only fix them, it can improve them. But who knows for how long.
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At a cost higher than new tech. Plus the environmental requirements will not be met
 
WalkWithMe said:
Not all is broken. It is old and end of life.
More capacity should have been added.
Click to expand...
Power stations of similar age EAF, USA vs SA:
Eskom-collapse-v2.png

businesstech.co.za

Load shedding at 40: The performance of power stations in South Africa vs the United States

Eskom often blames its electricity supply issues on an ageing fleet – this is how some of its 40-year-old power stations compare to similarly-aged plants in the United States.
businesstech.co.za businesstech.co.za
 
Just don't go spending buckets of money on hopeless causes, when the private sector will yield way more megawatts for the same money.
 
SilverCode said:
What I've noticed is that everyone talks about fixing old power stations to meet our energy needs. But even if you were to fix them and get them up to an EAF of say 80%, you are unlikely to actually meet our energy needs.

The old power stations were built to meet the energy needs of the 1980s.

The "new" power stations which were supposed to be finished like 10 years ago, would meet the energy requirements of 10 years ago.

So unless they actually build new power stations in 2030 when they finally fix everything (lol), we are still going to not have enough electricity because we are catering for a 20 year old energy need.
Click to expand...
There is nothing really wrong with the old power stations, they have an expiration date so the neglect was in line with their end of life, bringing them back will be a quick fix but the ailing budget will need to be stretched
They are good for 600MW total with 100% EAF so expected 450MW can be useful
Although the G7 countries wont like it
 
heinrikur said:
The difference with America vs SA is that America has different power utility companies mostly investor owned or SOEs and we on the other hand have but one Eskom.
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No, Eskom was no.1 power company in the world 20 years ago. Don't blame the company, blame ANC racist ideology.

Viva Transformation Viva!

Eskom's EAF numbers would be just fine today if Eskom wasn't Transformed.
 
WalkWithMe said:
Not all is broken. It is old and end of life.
More capacity should have been added.
Click to expand...
No, it is quite obviously a case of a lack of maintenance.

More capacity was planned in the form of Medupi and Kusile, however we all know how that went.

The problem is a lot of the maintenance that was forgone in the last decade was in an effort to avoid load shedding while the two new stations were under construction. Essentially a "sweat the asset" plan in which the forgone maintenance of stations would occur once the two stations came online, providing the necessary capacity overhead to take them down. Because the two new stations were late/underperformant that plan has lead a lot of the breakdowns we are now experiencing.

Corruption and mismanagement f*cked us there again.
 
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