Majuba silo failure leads to record power import

THE FAILURE of Eskom’s Majuba coal silo in November resulted in South Africa importing 1 120 gigawatt-hours of electricity that month, the highest monthly power imports since January 2010.

This emerged in Statistics SA’s (Stats SA) electricity report released yesterday.

The failure of the Majuba coal silo resulted in the Majuba power station’s power capacity being cut in half from 3 600MW to 1 800MW and caused Eskom to implement widespread power cuts.

Eskom’s spokesman Khulu Phasiwe said yesterday that the electricity imports were higher as a result of disruptions at Majuba.

Following the Majuba acci- economy,” he said.

In another power development, Eskom said the synchronisation phase of the Medupi power station’s first 800 megawatts (MW) unit was going to happen before June.

According to Eskom’s website, synchronisation is the process when a new power unit is connected to the power grid, so that its power is “perfectly dent, Eskom moved to import extra power from Mozambique as well as Namibia, he added.

As as result of the Majuba event, local power production also fell in November to a fiveyear low on a seasonally adjusted indexed basis. Stats SA also reported that power output decreased by 2 percent year on year in November on an index of the physical volume of power output basis, which contributed to the 1.4 percent decrease in the first 11 months of 2014 compared with the same period in 2013.

The actual estimated volume of electricity consumption decreased by 0.8 percent year on year in November to 18 815 gigawatt-hours. – Nompumelelo Magwaza aligned” with all the other units “and to generate and deliver electricity into the grid”.

Eskom missed its December 24 deadline, resulting in criticism from opposition parties, labour unions and business.

Media reports yesterday said the first test phase deadline was scheduled for June, but Eskom denied this.

However, Eskom spokesman THE DEMAND for electricity tends to decrease from Friday, going into the weekend. The capacity available from today through to Sunday is therefore expected to meet forecast demand as follows: Today: The capacity available to meet tomorrow’s evening peak demand is 30 855MW (including open cycle gas turbines) while demand is forecast at 28 726MW. Tomorrow: The capacity available to meet peak demand is 30 855MW while demand is forecast at 27 515MW. Sunday: The capacity available is 30 855MW while peak demand is forecast at 27 550MW. Khulu Phasiwe said they were waiting for the green light from the engineers and technicians working on cleaning the boiler at the plant.

“Once the engineers are comfortable that the boiler is clean enough, we will synchronise. It is factually incorrect to say the first synchronisation of Medupi’s unit 6 will be in June.

“It is scheduled to take place in the first quarter of the year, meaning any time from now until the end of March,” Phasiwe said.

Phasiwe said they expected the first unit of Medupi to become “commercially operational” in June by generating 800MW of electricity that can be sold. This would be generated gradually and ramp up from the synchronisation phase.

Back to normal

The country’s power supply is expected to only get back to normal once the Medupi and Kusile power stations were fully operational – allegedly in the next 12 to 18 months.

Medupi has suffered delays and escalating budget costs.

Meanwhile, Eskom said one of its two generators that went offline on Wednesday at the Tutuka power station in Mpumalanga had been repaired and was producing power.

Phasiwe said a technical fault had caused the breakdown, but the generator had been fixed within hours.

One generator at Majuba had not been fixed as the engineers were still working on it, Phasiwe said.

Eskom said the risk of power cuts was low until Sunday. Additional reporting by Siphamandla Goge