Medupi units drowning in ash

CONTRACTOR WITHDRAWS: SHORTAGE MAY INCREASE

Contractor in business rescue as ‘extremely abrasive ash grinds things away quickly’ at Eskom’s troubled plant.

‘It is extremely abrasive and will grind things away quickly.’

The five power generation units at Eskom’s troubled new Medupi power station that have been operational are drowning in ash after Clyde Bergemann Africa (CBZ), which was contracted to supply and construct the dust handling units, withdrew its staff.

CBZ’S Jeremy Kirsch said on Monday the business was placed in business rescue some time last week, days after he spoke out about what he described as Eskom’s failure to operate the plant at the completed units properly.

CBZ has long-term maintenance contracts on eight other Eskom power stations, Kirsch told Moneyweb. CBZ staff are still on site there. EE Publishers managing editor Chris Yelland, however, reported last week that these workers could down tools at any time.

Abrasive, enormously damaging’

Kirsch warned last week that “ash is extremely abrasive … it will grind things away quickly”.

He criticised Eskom for failing to attend to problems at the plant immediately and said things were left for days while ash is spewed all over. By the time the problem was fixed, damage was enormous.

Eskom’s GM for group technology Titus Mathe sad recently that it was battling to get necessary spares from CBZ, due to the latter’s financial pressures.

Seven units tripped within five hours on Monday. This necessitated stage four load shedding, with Eskom reducing the electricity load by 4 000MW to protect the system from total collapse.

According to Eskom spokesperson Khulu Phasiwe, Monday was the first time since about 2013-14 that Eskom had to reduce the load that much.

No diesel

According to Moneyweb sources, technicians were battling to get some units at the Grootvlei Power Station back online and the open-cycle gas turbines at the Gourikwa and Ankerlig power stations were out of diesel.

Energy Intensive User Group (EIUG) spokesperson Shaun Nel told Moneyweb on Monday it was concerned the crisis might deepen later in the week, because Eskom had been unable to replenish its diesel stack and water for its pump storage units.

Nel said the EIUG agreed with Eskom on Monday to form a technical team that would meet regularly with the system operator to identify where EIUG members could assist with technical skills to improve plant performance.

Meeting with Gordhan

Eskom said its board had held an urgent meeting with public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan following the announcement of load shedding on Sunday.

The meeting lasted more than six hours, with the board, Eskom management and department representatives delving deep into the problems at old and new power stations, Eskom said.

The board “has resolved to institute an urgent review to establish when, realistically, these projects [the Medupi and Kusile power stations] will be completed, the extent of design and other operational faults, what steps can be implemented to minimise the ever-escalating costs and what can be done to increase output”.

“The board is also urgently embarking on an in-depth audit of the entire system to ensure that every technical problem is understood at a granular level and to avoid unexpected crises as seen [on Monday].”