One of the problems, Kgadima said, is that Eskom\u2019s management and board don\u2019t have the capacity and knowledge to understand what is really happening.<\/p>\n
\u201cEskom has very good engineers, but the board and management can\u2019t comprehend the input they provide in terms of reports and solutions,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Kgadima said the result is that a large portion of the generation fleet of Eskom is offline because of breakdowns.<\/p>\n
\u201cEskom\u2019s management has not been able to address the root causes of the breakdowns. If you can address these causes, South Africa will not have load-shedding,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
![\"Tshepo](\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/Tshepo-Kgadima-640x426.jpg\")
<\/a>Tshepo Kgadima<\/p><\/div>\n
Kgadima said one of the biggest problems is that Eskom is not burning the coal they receive correctly.<\/p>\n
Eskom has been secretive about what exactly caused power station breakdowns, but boiler problems feature prominently.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reason for boilers continually breaking down is not the age of the boilers. It is simply that Eskom does not burn coal in the manner the boiler has been calibrated for,\u201d Kgadima said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are running at much higher temperatures, which Eskom engineers have been warning about.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said power plant managers do not have real-time insight into what is happening in the boilers. As a result, the high temperatures are causing boiler tube leakages which have a snowball effect.<\/p>\n
This problem is preventable, but only if you have competent employees and managers who understand the geochemical properties of the coal they are burning.<\/p>\n
\u201cEskom needs to pay particular attention to this issue, which we have been advocating for since 2015,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Independent Energy Thought Leaders CEO, Mike Rossouw, echoed Kgadima\u2019s views<\/strong><\/a> that load-shedding is here to stay for a long time.<\/p>\n He said Eskom\u2019s power stations are in dire need of major maintenance and major overalls. They cannot be fixed overnight.<\/p>\n \u201cThe state of the power stations today is worse than they have ever been,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Rossouw added that the politicians and Eskom board do not know what is happening inside the power utility.<\/p>\n \u201cNobody is taking the appropriate action. Serious things have to be done which are politically unpalatable,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n MyBroadband asked Eskom about the lack of expertise among its board members and management, but it did not respond.<\/p>\n Eskom also did not answer questions on why load-shedding did not improve after its promised September 2021 deadline.<\/p>\n Independent energy expert, Tshepo Kgadima, said Eskom is ignoring a preventable problem that can help stop load-shedding.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":383490,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27995],"tags":[181,35,17080,58234],"class_list":["post-421808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy","tag-eskom","tag-headline","tag-mike-rossouw","tag-tshepo-kgadima"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421808"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421808"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421808\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":421874,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421808\/revisions\/421874"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/383490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/Kusile.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nNow read: Disaster strikes at Eskom<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"