South Africa’s power utility, Eskom announced that Stage 2 and stage 3 loadshedding will be implemented this week. This comes after no loadshedding was implemented for the past few days.
Minister of Electricity Kgosientsho Ramokgopa will conduct site visits at all of Eskom's 14 power stations nationally to engage with management, workers, and unions. The tour of the country’s power stations will take place over the next two weeks.
The minister is aiming to gain first-hand experience of the challenges facing the power utility with the view of addressing them to reduce the frequency of loadshedding and ultimately end loadshedding. They were also briefed on the measures being taken to increase the energy availability factor at power stations.
Ramokgopa said, “I committed to the country that we’ll be at the station level, examining the issues that affect every unit and getting from the station manager, organised labour and workers about what are the interventions, in their opinion, they think are appropriate to help scale up energy availability.”
On Tuesday, 21 March 2023 Ramokgopa visited the Kusile power station and the Kendal power station in Mpumalanga. Minister Ramokgopa says problems at Kusile are technical and not due to corruption.
Kusile Power Station is designed to consist of six 800-megawatt coal-fired generating units for a total generating capacity of 4,800 megawatts. However, several challenges mean that the power station is not operating at full capacity.
In October 2022, a section of the flue-gas desulphurisation duct, which carries emissions from Kusile Unit 1 into a large chimney collapsed. Two additional units, which are also connected to the collapsed chimney, were also taken offline.
This structural failure means that the Kusile power station won't be able to contribute around 2,400 megawatts of electricity to the nation. This equates to around two stages of loadshedding.
On Monday, the minister visited the Kriel power station and the Duvha Power Station in Mpumalanga. They were informed that when cooling towers are fixed at the Kriel power station, more energy will be added to the grid.
Ramokgopa stressed that workers employed at the power station are the biggest asset Eskom has in its arsenal and believes workers will play a critical role in ending the country’s electricity challenges.
