Load shedding remains in place despite improvements at Eskom’s coal-fired power stations

Power utility Eskom says despite the improvements made by Eskom at its coal fired power stations, load shedding will still continue in the late hours from 4pm until 5am daily until further notice.

Addressing media on Monday, March 25, Eskom Group Executive for Generation, Bheki Nxumalo, says although challenges continue, at least five power stations identified for attention and intervention are beginning to show improvement.

Nxumalo was speaking during an Energy Action Plan (EAP) media briefing where he announced that Kusile is making a steady progress.

“One of the stations identified was Kusile Power Station, where we were running one unit and it was also not running at full capacity. At Kusile now, we have actually taken it out of recovery station because it is running exceptionally well, on average above 90% availability,” he said.

“It shows that we have taken the lessons from Medupi [power station], which has been consistently running at those levels. Kusile has now turned the corner,” he added.

Nxumalo said there are improvements at the Majuba, Matla, Duvha and Kriel power stations, which are all located in Mpumalanga.

“With the work that we’ve done, we’ve seen a significant improvement at Majuba in terms of reduction of partial load losses and also trips at that plant. That plant is also running exceptionally well, so is Matla power station as well.

“Duvha has been doing exceptionally well, except for the boiler failures but on average, Duvha is on the right track. It is actually performing much better than it was a year ago. Kriel power station is also seeing good improvement,” he said.

Nxumalo conceded that Kendal and Tutuka power stations “have not improved as expected”.

“We understand why. With Tutuka… we are starting to commission those units so in the next two months, we are going through a major commissioning period. We expect that Tutuka will start performing much better than what has happened,” he said.