Arnot turnaround means it’s back to basics
● Marcus Nemadodzi’s career in electricity might have started because he chose to stand in the shorter queue at Mangosuthu University of Technology, but today the general manager of Arnot power station in Middelburg, Mpumalanga, takes the long way round in fixing the basics at his station.
Nemadodzi started working as Arnot’s GM 18 months ago.
“Arnot is from an engineering and plant point of view very forgiving. It runs under circumstances in which I have seen other stations fail. It is very robust. If needs be, we can even run for a period of time without removing ash. It will be limping, but it will not fall,” he told the Sunday Times.
“We have six units. Each of them sends out 350MW. One of them is out for planned maintenance.”
Nemadodzi is open about the challenges he faces. “One of our biggest challenges is people. At mid- to senior level, we had some problems. Some of us let our guards down at a point. We went through a difficult regime and became ordinary,” he said.
Now he wants to get back to basics.
“We needed to not just get back to basics — we needed to get them right.”
He provides an example: “When a unit is running, you must do unit checks. This gives me a clear idea of the state of my plant. This was not being done effectively. People went around the corner and filled the paperwork out, [and] then they gave you a piece of paper that was essentially meaningless.
“These reports are supposed to be an early warning system. Something was doing this yesterday, and today it is starting to do that. Before the unit fails, you have already started making plans. With useless data, this does not work. We had to inspire our people to do better.”
Maintenance is also a huge problem.
“We really robbed Tom to fix Harry. We almost never had a set of spares available. We now have someone whose sole focus is procurement,” Nemadodzi said.
He started at Eskom 29 years ago.
“After completing my studies in electrical engineering at Mangosuthu University of Technology, I entered the training programme at Eskom.
“I started at Majuba and worked my way up to a senior management position. I worked at that station for 17 years, until I was appointed power station manager at Camden,
where I stayed for three years.
“I travelled around a bit, working in different positions for Eskom at Tutuka, Komati, and so on. During [the Covid-19 lockdowns], they moved us around even more.”
He loves Arnot because it just keeps going when other stations would fail.
“There are mechanical main pumps that feed water into the boilers. For a backup, we have two electrical feed pumps. If the main pumps fail, these two will kick in and the load we carry will remain unchanged. You won’t find something like this elsewhere.
“We are now operating at an energy availability factor of just over 48%. Our five operational units deliver 350MW each.”
Nemadodzi, who was born and raised in the old Venda Bantustan, grew up in the Sibasa area.
He gives a belly laugh when asked if he always wanted to be an electrical engineer.
“I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I had very poor guidance as a youngster.”
He eventually left Joburg for Mangosuthu University of Technology in Umlazi.
“I still had no idea what I wanted to study, except that it would be some sort of engineering. The queue was shorter at the electrical engineering side, so I joined there.”
He stares at the huge cooling towers in the distance and shakes his head in wonder.
“How strange is that? That shorter queue changed my life.”