Power reserves remain low: Eskom

LazyLion

King of de Jungle
Joined
Mar 17, 2005
Messages
107,590
Reaction score
10,235
Location
District 9
Eskom's electricity supply system remains under strain but the utility is not expecting further power cuts, it said on Saturday.

"The system is tight at the moment because our reserves are low. We don't, however, expect load shedding," spokesman Andrew Etzinger said.

"At the moment we are replenishing our fuel supply to power stations. We are refilling the plants' fuel."

Etzinger said consumers would be informed on all developments regarding the supply of electricity.

The parastatal's CEO Brian Dames said on Friday that opting for staggered power cuts was a painful move, but unavoidable to save the electricity system.

"The decision was necessary to avoid a total blackout," he told reporters in Johannesburg.

He said a total blackout would have had significant consequences for the South African economy.

At 6am on Thursday, Eskom announced a power emergency caused by heavy rains, which wet its coal stocks.

Large industrial customers were asked to reduce consumption by 10 percent and the public were asked to conserve electricity to help ease demand on the power grid.

In Tshwane, power was cut for about two hours on Thursday in some areas. Power cuts were also experienced in Johannesburg.

The City of Cape Town initiated "stage three" power cuts and suburbs in Port Elizabeth were also affected.

Eskom urged the public to continue to use electricity sparingly although the emergency was over.


Source : Sapa /jm/mr/lp
Date : 08 Mar 2014 10:52
 
I went underground a few times in 2012 at one of Eskom's BHP Billiton run mines in Mpumulanga, and they were mining close to consumption capacity back then.

One of the mining engineers said that one of their biggest threats is flooding. It's of no surprise that this is a reality now.
 
Last edited:
Interesting, of interest to me , was to see that the Kudu Gas fired power station that our Gov keeps telling us that they are gonna be building this year was mentioned as not concluded due to high pricing by Eskom.... wonder if my Gov is lying to me.... this power station is meant to be built in my town.... 600mw.... still waiting....
 
Eskom CEO Brian Dames says the country's power system remains "vulnerable" but unplanned outages will reduce going into winter.
I'm kinda wondering how they figure this? Unplanned outages are by definition unplanned, so how do they conclude it going to be less?
 
I'm kinda wondering how they figure this? Unplanned outages are by definition unplanned, so how do they conclude it going to be less?

It's because they do heavy maintenance on the system during summer and autumn and therefore have more of the fleet available at any one time during winter. I think Dames is referring to unplanned power outages, not unit outages, so having more of the fleet available means they can better absorb a unit going down suddenly. Also with winter being a lot drier in Mpumalanga, the coal stores won't be as badly affected as they were.
 
It's because they do heavy maintenance on the system during summer and autumn and therefore have more of the fleet available at any one time during winter. I think Dames is referring to unplanned power outages, not unit outages, so having more of the fleet available means they can better absorb a unit going down suddenly. Also with winter being a lot drier in Mpumalanga, the coal stores won't be as badly affected as they were.
Makes sense...still think its a bit of a dodgy statement esp given that demand is also what 3gw higher.
 
Yahoo! Head Office has just instructed me to buy a 6kva Genset on Monday, she has been holding out for the last six years.... Just want to thank Brian and the team over at Megawatt Park.....
 
Yahoo! Head Office has just instructed me to buy a 6kva Genset on Monday, she has been holding out for the last six years.... Just want to thank Brian and the team over at Megawatt Park.....
lol - be sure to get a quiet one else HO will be on your case about the noise. Or maybe just build a small house thing for it.
 
lol - be sure to get a quiet one else HO will be on your case about the noise. Or maybe just build a small house thing for it.

Busy getting drunk, so I have become creative, thinking of building a raft island for the middle of my porty pool, place the genset on the middle of the raft, switch on the Fountain to drown at the noise and away we go....
 
Busy getting drunk, so I have become creative, thinking of building a raft island for the middle of my porty pool, place the genset on the middle of the raft, switch on the Fountain to drown at the noise and away we go....
lol. I'd start by digging a hole & sticking it in there.
 
Makes sense...still think its a bit of a dodgy statement esp given that demand is also what 3gw higher.

If you go through their weekly supply status reports for winter and the beginning of this year, you see they work on around 5-6GW of maintenance outages during summer and 3-4GW during winter period. They also build in 2GW of unplanned outages into their estimates and hope it isn't needed. Thursday, when Kendal 1,2,5,6 (2672 MW) went down along with 1 @ Grootvlei (200MW) and one at Majuba (either 665MW or 716MW), they went way over that 2GW limit.
 
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X