Power plant maintenance essential: ESKOM

[LazyLion]

Power utility Eskom cannot build new power plants if old ones are not properly maintained, senior general manager Andrew Etzinger said on Thursday.

"Building new power plants doesn't help. We can't defer maintenance, it does mean on an odd day we will be vulnerable, but we have to bite the bullet and get the power plants back in order," he said at the Powering African Industry conference at Nasrec in Soweto.

Etzinger said in past years Eskom had not had the "window" to carry out the maintenance the power plants required, which had caused a backlog.

The winter maintenance plan went well and yielded the desired results.

Eskom had a better handle on the system, said Etzinger. The way Eskom managed the power grid was critical.

"Partnership is vital. We need to nurture that relationship."

Etzinger said "prosumers" and not consumers were needed as part of the partnership. The word prosumer is a contraction of producer and consumer.

"Work together with Eskom to keep the grid stable."

Eskom was not there to make money, but to supply electricity.

"We provide electricity to our customers, we are not here to make money. We do need to be financially sustainable, but our mandate is to power the economy and society, not to make money."

Eskom, which was about 90 years old, supplied electricity to 95 percent of South Africa.

With 97 days to go before the Medupi power station's unit six was powered up -- he said the power station looked "fantastic". The coal-fired power station, the first power station to be built by Eskom in 20 years, is being built near Lephalale in Limpopo.

Unit six of the power station, which has faced numerous delays in its construction, is expected to be synchronised at midday on December 24.

Synchronisation, or first power, involves the generator being connected to the power grid, so that its power is aligned with all other generators delivering electricity into the grid. It would take several months for the unit to reach full and stable power.


Source : Sapa /dm/jk/jje/th
Date : 18 Sep 2014 11:18

 

[The_Unbeliever]

No s**t Sherlock.

And you only realize it now?

:erm:

no amount of facepalming is good enough...

 

[The_Unbeliever]

Eskom was not there to make money, but to supply electricity.

Liars.

 

[Compton_effect]

"We provide electricity to our customers, we are not here to make money. We do need to be financially sustainable, but our mandate is to power the economy and society, not to make money."

If that was the case you would not have downsized staff, increased management and allowed your maintenance schedule to fall so far behind. Among things.
A US billionaire actually wanted to build a nuclear plant in SA in the early 2000's and sell the power to Eskom. They took it under consideration.

Its a cash cow, that just found out it actually needs to pull a cart, or it will be sent to the slaughterhouse.

 

[bekdik]

No s**t Sherlock.

And you only realize it now?

:erm:

no amount of facepalming is good enough...

Couldn't have said it better.

Amazing how these guys like to emphasize their incompetence!

 

[richjdavies]

I hope the investors don't hear that?!

Unfortunately you need to raise pretty much amounts of capital to build a power plant... and you need profit to pay them back for them taking that risk.

Good to hear that the Eskom's own spokes person is trying to 'downgrade' the company.

 

[HavocXphere]

I hope the investors don't hear that?!

Unfortunately you need to raise pretty much amounts of capital to build a power plant... and you need profit to pay them back for them taking that risk.

Good to hear that the Eskom's own spokes person is trying to 'downgrade' the company.

Its gov guaranteed (implicitly / explicitly). Those investors are getting paid back no matter what. Else next time round a SA parastatal/gov needs money no investor will touch it & then we as a country might as well give up.

 

[genetic]

Liars.

Actually, they're owed Billions of Rands from municipalities, that's why they have to hike prices to cover the shortfall.

 

[KleinBoontjie]

What they should've done: Rewind 20 years, get good project managers and plan for the future. Save money for future maintenance and upgrades. Come 2014, no problems or short falls.

What actually happened: "meh, ****it, it will last another few years....divide the savings into bonuses and get rid of every last cent"

 

[HavocXphere]

What they should've done: Rewind 20 years, get good project managers and plan for the future. Save money for future maintenance and upgrades. Come 2014, no problems or short falls.

What actually happened: "meh, ****it, it will last another few years....divide the savings into bonuses and get rid of every last cent"

Eskom wanted to build plants. Everyone's favorite political party nuked that plan...

 

[genetic]

What they should've done: Rewind 20 years, get good project managers and plan for the future. Save money for future maintenance and upgrades. Come 2014, no problems or short falls.

What actually happened: "meh, ****it, it will last another few years....divide the savings into bonuses and get rid of every last cent"

:erm: Not true.

Eskom asked government for new plants in the 90's for fear of a shortfall - but government said NO.

'Warnings of a dark future were clear and accurate. A White Paper of 1998 said that the
country would run out of electricity by 2007. The report was signed by the then minister
Penual Maduna Now, despite the dire prediction, it was never acted upon.'

Eskom’s request for budget to build new power stations were also denied in 1998, and the
government instructed Eskom to stop building new power stations due to the governments
attempted privatisation of Eskom in the late 1990’s

http://www.solidarityinstitute.co.za/docs/eskom_crisis.pdf

 

[Arthur]

Thanks, genetic. I've grown weary of saying the blame should be placed on government and not on Eskom.

Apart from some cadre deployments imposed from on high, Eskom is actually a good company.

The power fault lies squarely with government and with the governing party. Not Eskom.

 

[HavocXphere]

...

Yip...still can't believe that happened.

Power supplier: The sht is going to hit the fan unless we do something...here is the plan to fix it
Government: Plan to fix it denied
....
15 years later
...
Government: Oh sht...the sht just hit the fan. Now what?

 

[genetic]

Apart from some cadre deployments imposed from on high, Eskom is actually a good company.

The power fault lies squarely with government and with the governing party. Not Eskom.

Can you imagine the stress those guys at Eskom have just by keeping the lights on?

The blame IMO lies squarely on government.

This is an interesting article on the Eskom nerve centre, which many don't actually know about which puts a lot into perspective.

It is five o’clock in the evening and the computer dials at the nerve-centre of state electricity firm Eskom are cranking towards the red as millions of people get home and turn on their heating, hot water and cookers.

In the next two hours, demand will jump sharply, pushing the grid towards its limits and a repeat of the emergency rolling blackouts or “load-shedding” that wreaked havoc on Africa’s biggest economy in 2008.

With the southern hemisphere winter drawing in, Eskom is walking a tightrope to keep power flowing to factories, mines and smelters that had to shut down for days four years ago, costing the economy billions of dollars in lost output.

At one point in January, the difference between demand and available supply fell to just 460 megawatts, a buffer of just over 1 percent, as some plants running harder than usual because of network maintenance unexpectedly tripped out.

More close shaves like that and Eskom will have little option but to start shutting down parts of the system to prevent a total collapse – a move that would lead to temporary mine closures and a spike in world prices of platinum, gold and coal.

The rand, would also take a hit, as would the confidence of foreign investors.

The pressure is huge, yet it is hard to see any signs of it among the technicians monitoring the banks of blinking screens and flashing alarms in Eskom’s darkened control centre.

Save for the hum of air conditioners, the room is silent as the guardians of Africa’s biggest power grid adjust voltages and shift electricity loads with the calm of air traffic controllers.

“We are worried,” Kannan Lakmeeharan, the head of Eskom’s delivery unit, said. “Our resolve is not to load-shed, but there are no guarantees. It can be prevented but it will require extraordinary effort and immediate action.“

Hefty price

South Africa, the top producer of platinum and a major supplier of gold and coal, paid dearly for the 2008 power crunch, which rippled beyond its borders in the form of record metal prices and knock-on power shut-downs in its neighbours.

It also damaged the reputation of the continent’s most sophisticated economy as a solid destination for investment.

“If the lights go out now in a severe way, then you will have years of public relations to do to convince investors that things have stabilised,” said Cornelis van der Waal, an energy analyst at consultancy Frost & Sullivan.

Aware of such risks, Eskom has set aside 2 400MW of gas-fired emergency reserves as part of the system’s total net maximum capacity of 41 000MW, although these plants produce electricity at up to 15 times the price of coal-fired plants.

Operators of the giant ore smelters around Johannesburg have also signed agreements to power down for up to two hours a week to give the grid additional breathing space, and public service broadcasts go out on television to tell people to turn off pool pumps and other appliances whenever supply gets tight.

After that, it is down to the staff monitoring the grid 24/7 for transmission faults, system trips or demand spikes.

Since 2008, South Africans have learnt to deal with the occasional blackout.

Every driver knows how to pass through a traffic junction without working lights. Home-owners stock camping gas cookers. Shops and businesses put notes in their windows to alert customers to backup generators.

Many learnt the hard way in 2008, when fears of some of the highest murder and violent crime rates kept many South Africans from going out at night on darkened streets.

“People would rather just stay in, keep the doors locked and your business was down by 80 to 90 percent,” Johannesburg restaurant owner Zane Beer said. “You literally lose your stock over those days.”

Beer is installing a generator in his smart new Mediterranean restaurant, Oliva, and has a big box of candles stashed in a back room. Even though he cooks on gas, he knows attracting customers will be hard if the lights go out.

Since 2008, mining companies have also been busy making contingencies and improving efficiency, with some cutting usage by as much as 30 percent. Others are generating their own power to reduce reliance on the grid.

However, a harsh cold snap could run things tight, with Eskom estimating an extra 600MW to 700MW of demand during the evening peak for every 1ºC drop in temperature.

A year ago, the rand fell on rumours of Eskom blackout programmes.

Maintenance backlog

The crunch has been in the making since the pre-1994 days of apartheid, when the white-minority government sought to turn South Africa into a haven for heavy industry by underpricing power to attract investment.

After years of buoyant economic growth since 1994, and with millions of impoverished black households in the sprawling townships round major cities being connected to the grid for the first time, Eskom has struggled to keep up with the demand.

It hit the panic button a decade before 2008, begging for critical investment in new plants, but Nelson Mandela’s ruling ANC dragged its feet, saying it wanted to bring in private power producers but failed to create an adequate regulatory framework for them to come in.

Squeezed on all sides, Eskom reopened mothballed plants and turned on emergency back-up systems. Independent producers have also been encouraged, and private players now pump up to 1 000MW of power into the grid. Yet the bulk of generation is carried out by plants between 20 and 30 years old.

Eskom delayed non-essential repairs to prevent disruption to events such as the 2010 soccer World Cup, but since then maintenance crews have been working flat out. Still, the repair backlog will last at least until the end of 2013 and the first of 11 000MW of power from three new plants – Medupi, Kusile and Ingula – is at least a year away.

Recession in 2009 brought some respite in the form of reduced demand, although growth is ticking up to 3 percent this year and towards 4 percent in 2013. When it hits 4.5 percent, power demand will be rising at 3 percent a year, the limit of what Eskom says it can cope with.

Cutting national power use, or “integrated demand management” in Eskom-speak, has also managed to shave 1 600MW off the power bill.

Some 43 million low power light bulbs have been fitted in homes across the country and billboards urge people to turn off air conditioners, water heaters and swimming pool pumps.

Mining companies have been asked to cut usage “voluntarily” by up to 10 percent and the scheme may be made mandatory.

The biggest incentives have been steep hikes in electricity tariffs that will help Eskom raise R460 billion to build new plants.

As a result, the utility is on a more stable financial footing than in 2008 and funding for new plants is secured.

Chief executive Brian Dames, an Eskom veteran, and financial director Paul O’Flaherty, who was hired from outside, have gone to great lengths to woo investors and position the utility as a serious player.

But on a blackout-free winter, the jury is still out.

“It’s not easy to sleep at night because we are worried,” Eskom’s Lakmeeharan said. “But it’s not that we are panicking.” – Reuters

http://www.iol.co.za/business/features/eskom-battles-to-keep-the-lights-on-1.1305575#.VByGA_mSx8E

 

[upup]

Thanks, genetic. I've grown weary of saying the blame should be placed on government and not on Eskom.

Apart from some cadre deployments imposed from on high, Eskom is actually a good company.

The power fault lies squarely with government and with the governing party. Not Eskom.

Look at medupi, contractors strike and strike and government and police did not move, only to ride there own gravy train. Now medupi is costing xxx times more.

Long time ago a piece of land were bought near jeffreys for a nuclear plant, but green peace and the spca stop it.

a Friend who works there say they are only allow to buy from BEE companies, which is mostly more expensive.

 

[HavocXphere]

Can you imagine the stress those guys at Eskom have just by keeping the lights on?

From vaguely similar experience I can tell you that they likely don't view it as "keeping the lights on". i.e. If you think of it as "if it drops below 3k then the national grid collapses" then you'll have a heart attack soon. If you think of it as "I'll move these funny numbers on the screen above 4k" then you might emerge psychologically intact. i.e. being ice code & abstract does occasionally help make better decisions, much like medical triage.