According to Eskom interim CEO Calib Cassim, the performance of some of its coal-fired power facilities is improving, which bodes well for Eskom’s goal of attaining 70% availability by fiscal year 2025.
Yet, the utility appears to have little prospect of meeting the 60% objective by the end of this month.
In the evening of Thursday, March 16, Eskom stated that six of its coal-fired power plants had reached energy availability factors (EAF) of 70% in the previous week, “a milestone last achieved on 8 May 2022.”
The EAF has been steadily declining over the past few years and the reality is far removed from the assumption of 75% availability that underpins South Africa’s integrated resource plan (IRP).
Notwithstanding the necessity to update it every two years, the IRP that serves as the foundation for new generation capacity plans was last revised in 2019.
The evaluation is part of the government’s energy crisis plan.
As a result of unforeseen breakages, the average availability of Eskom’s generating fleet in the first 10 weeks of 2023 is only 52.36%. In 2022, the average was 58%.
In the week ending March 12, 35.47% of capacity was unavailable due to unforeseen disruptions. In 2022, the average was 29.86%. This is the most recent statistics from Eskom. Every Wednesday, it is generally updated.
According to Clyde Mallinson, director of Virtual Energy and Power, the EAF for the coal-fired fleet in the first nine weeks of this year is even lower, at 45.64%. He also cautions that the available units are being overworked.
The Eskom new board set a goal of attaining 60% availability by the end of March, but former Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter warned before his abrupt departure in February that this goal would not be met.
Eskom has admitted that it does not get the desired results from the maintenance work it does and units often break down again shortly after being returned to service following planned maintenance.
Cassim however points to early signs of progress.
According to the Eskom statement three of the coal-fired power stations, Camden, Duvha and Matla, “have been on a sustained upward trend as a result of a reduction of plant breakdowns and the return to service of a number of units that were on unplanned breakdowns. Lethabo, Matimba and Medupi have been experiencing continued good performance and remain among Eskom’s three best-performing stations. In addition, Lethabo was able to sustain performance after a quick recovery following a wet coal incident experienced last week, due to flooding after excessive rainfall.”
Cassim says: “While this is still early progress, it shows a positive trajectory from actions taken to recover Eskom generation plants. This is consistent with Eskom’s target to achieve 70% EAF by 2025 financial year.”
This improvement appears to have allowed Eskom to reduce load shedding from nearly continuous stages four and five, which saw it shedding up to 5 000 MW at a time, to stage three throughout the day.
According to EskomsePush, the country has experienced 1 796 hours of load shedding through to March 17, a period of 75 days.
