Eskom’s long-delayed and costly Medupi and Kusile power stations are experiencing defects, which will take two years to fix. According to Eskom’s COO Jan Oberholzer, this would not further delay Medupi and Kusile, which were scheduled for completion in 2020 and 2023, respectively.
Eskom’s long-delayed and costly Medupi and Kusile power stations are experiencing defects that will take two years to fix, the utility says.
Eskom COO Jan Oberholzer said the exhaust temperature from the two mega coal-fired power stations is too high and has a negative effect on everything downstream.
“The contractor is in the process of pulling together the longterm solutions. We believe, however, this is going to take two years,” said Oberholzer, who was speaking at Eskom’s quarterly state of the system briefing on Wednesday.
“We are going to have some challenges because we need the power, we need the units to run because we are short on supply to meet demand.”
Oberholzer said this would not further delay Medupi and Kusile, which were scheduled for completion in 2020 and 2023 respectively. Fixing the defects would continue in parallel and possibly beyond completion, he said.
The two power stations, with a combined capital cost of over R300bn, are the single biggest driver behind Eskom’s unsustainable debt levels, which have reached R450bn.
Asked who would foot the bill for the defects, Eskom acting CEO and chair Jabu Mabuza said it was challenging to have a dispute with a contractor over liability when they were still required to fix the problem.
In order to not hinder progress, Eskom is opting to have the contractor go ahead with the work while the question of culpability and liability is thrashed out separately.
Despite the latent defects, the new power stations were generating power and those units that were already in commercial operation were doing so at 80%-90% of capacity, Mabuza said.
In the state of the system briefing, Eskom has demonstrated some progress.
Average energy availability factor, which measures plant performance, was up to 70.4% as at the end of August, compared with 67% at the beginning of 2019. Diesel usage to run emergency turbines has been a quarter of what was budgeted for and coal supply had also improved, with all but one of Eskom’s power stations having stockpiles above the grid code of 20 days.
Load-shedding had not been implemented for 164 days but, as Oberholzer noted, the power system benefited from low demand in winter due to the warmer temperatures and the poor economic climate.
In summer, however, consumers use power throughout the day, unlike in winter when demand peaks at certain times. The higher ambient temperatures and wind directions in the warmer months have an effect on some of the power plants.
Eskom’s summer plan will balance the need for increased maintenance against the risk of unreliable plant performance.
The utility is aiming to have 5,500MW of planned outages to perform maintenance and needs unplanned outages to stay below 9,500MW in order to mitigate the risk of load-shedding. The plan assumes power will be supplied from one unit at Medupi and Kusile each.
Chris Yelland, an independent energy analyst, said Eskom presented a convincing picture that it is working hard to get to grips with operation problems.
“They are not promising that all of the problems will disappear in six months like some of the previous CEOs. They are saying that it’s a long haul, and that is true. It gives me confidence that people have their feet on the ground and are dealing with these operational problems. This is not just fluff but serious hard-nosed engineering and hard work,” he said.