Eskom burning through diesel after Kendal outage
After a fire at its Kendal power station at the weekend, power utility Eskom says it will be forced to increase diesel consumption as only two of three affected units are expected to return to service this week.
Unit one at the Mpumalanga plant tripped and caught alight and is expected to return to service in November. The fire at the plant affected units two and three as both experienced loss of vacuum and were shut down under controlled conditions, Eskom says.
This is the second Eskom plant that has been affected by a fire after Medupi’s unit four generator exploded in August.
“While Eskom will be forced to increase diesel consumption, we do not anticipate that any load-shedding will be implemented as a result of the incident,” Eskom spokesperson Sikonathi Mantshantsha said.
“All personnel who were on site were evacuated safely with no injuries sustained during this unfortunate incident. Further investigations will be conducted to determine the root cause of the generator transformer fire.”
On Saturday evening, after the Kendal outage, the power utility reported that it had used eight of its diesel-operated open cycle gas turbines (OCGTs) when demand reached 27,479MW and Eskom’s available generation capacity stood at 29,397MW.
OCGTs are meant to support increased demand during peak hours in a period of constrained electricity supply. The gas turbines, however, cost much more to run compared with traditional coal power sources.
Mantshantsha said on Monday Eskom is unable to determine how much additional diesel it requires as the amount depends on demand during the evening peak hours.
Eskom suspended loadshedding for four hours in March during the memorial service of the late Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini. In response to a parliamentary question by DA MP Ghaleb Cachalia, public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan said during the service the utility dispatched four OCGTs to meet the increased demand. The gas turbines supplied 2,404MW/h and cost R8.5m to run during this period with maximum output reaching 610MW.