Eskom in a bind as rain leads to wet-coal risk

ESKOM’S beleaguered Majuba station in Mpumalanga, in the news recently after the collapse of a coal silo, is struggling to maintain generation capacity owing to wet weather. In a systems update yesterday, Eskom said generating capacity was at about 1 600 megawatts as the station was facing wet coal challenges given that some of the coal handling was taking place out in the open. “The system is expected to be tight over the evening peaks for the next few days as a result of the continued nippy and cloudy weather conditions, which are forecasted for the next few days, as well as the loss of additional units at our power stations as a result of technical faults,” the state-owned power utility said last night. It said it had implemented a wet coal management strategy to ensure that the wet-coal risk was reduced at other power stations. “It is, however, not possible to neutralise this risk completely, especially over periods of prolonged high rainfall,” it said. The collapse of a 10-ton coal silo at Majuba earlier this month left the country open to load shedding as the system became too strained to cope. – Staff Writer