Wonder woman takes care of ‘Grand Old Lady’
● Tshepiso Temo is in charge of nursing Eskom’s Grootvlei power station, one of the “grand old ladies” of the group’s coal-fired fleet, through the challenges of its advancing years.
She loves her job, but she’s not too sure about that “grand old lady” label.
“When I’m in meetings with other general managers they call this station ‘the Grand Old Lady’. I don’t like that she is called old. You have to look at her contribution to the national grid. Even now, when it comes to our energy availability factor [EAF], we are often a top-three, top-four contender.”
Temo says Grootvlei was built in the 1960s and commissioned in the early 1970s. It was mothballed in the early 1990s and brought back in the early 2000s, “when Eskom needed her”.
“We have now been in another period of transition, knowing the plan was to shut her down again, so we’ve been carefully balancing how much money was spent on the plant for upkeep and maintenance. Then, about three years ago, the decision was made not to shut her down.
“We had to come back and attempt to undo the damage done by lack of maintenance, but I can tell you these units have been very forgiving of what we have done to them.”
Regardless of its age, Grootvlei certainly is grand by Eskom standards — its three units boast an EAF of 60%. One of the units is now offline after being damaged in a fire — remove it from the equation and the EAF for the remaining two is 90%, Temo says.
Three of Grootvlei’s original six units were permanently shut down when the station was mothballed. The unit damaged by fire is expected to be up and running by December, Temo said. “Once we have the third unit back on load, we will be running at almost 90% EAF in total.”
The units that work have an installed capacity of 200MW each but generate 190MW.
In December, Temo will celebrate her 20th year at Eskom.
“The utility looks after its people, but it is also about that service aspect. You know you are adding value to the nation with what you do every day,” she said, adding she has been around long enough to remember the good times.
“Around 2004 Eskom was the cream of international power generation. Being with the company for so long, I remember those days and I yearn and work hard for them to return.”
Growing up in the village of Danhouse outside Hammanskraal, Temo always wanted to be an engineer.
“I knew I was going to be an engineer someday. I was a single child raised by a single parent. My mother, a nurse, was very strict.”
She was part of a maintenance team of two in her childhood home.
“Whatever had to be fixed in our house, had to be fixed by us. It was only me and my mom. If a light bulb blew, I was the one who climbed on a chair to replace it,” she said.
“My mother had this small Nissan 1400 bakkie. We used its battery in the house to watch TV before we had electricity. I took great pride in being the one who removed it and attached it to the TV to then put it back in the mornings before we left for school.
“Fixing things became part of me very early on. Fixing problems is in my blood. Even today, if I see something that isn’t working, I want to know why and then solve the problem.”
She qualified as a mechanical engineer from the Tshwane University of Technology.
Today, Temo has four children, aged between eight and 20.
“They are proud of their engineer mom and I am proud of them. We stay in Benoni and I drive through every day. It is about 97km one way, so a two-hour round trip every day.”
Travelling to and from Mpumalanga every day takes its toll, though.
“It can be tough, especially when something goes wrong. You could be sitting here about to go home, and all the units are running, then something goes wrong. You don’t know how long it will take to solve the problem or what time you will be able to leave for home.”
But when she gets home, the grand old lady remains on her mind. She is on her phone, monitoring the plant’s performance.
“At home, when I see a call coming in from an 017 [number], I think ‘Oooh wat nou?’
“I take great pride in the responsibility. It is more than just a job, it is a calling and a service to our country. Saying that, I know I will get frustrated and tired at times because I am always at work. But it is part of the entire package that I love.”