POWER CRISIS
Shortage of diesel to power gas turbines means rolling blackouts continue
Eskom has announced that Stage 3 rolling blackouts will continue until Thursday, 29 September, due to planned maintenance, units breaking and difficulty getting diesel to power its open-cycle gas turbines.
On the 75th day of power cuts so far this year, Eskom announced that Stage 3 rolling blackouts would continue until Thursday, 29 September, with Stage 4 being implemented during evening peaks between 4pm and midnight.
Why are we living in never-ending darkness?
Despite its standard excuses of planned maintenance being carried out to some units (5,897MW) and other units unavailable due to breakdowns (a whopping 16,739MW), Eskom said it was struggling to get diesel from its supplier. This means it can’t operate two of its open cycle gas turbines — which means another 2,000MW of power off the grid.
Segomoco Scheppers, the group executive for transmission at Eskom, said at the signing ceremony on Thursday, 22 September, for three Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme projects that the then unavailable 21,000MW was “a painfully high number. If half of that was available, we would not be here.”
He added: “It is not a quick or easy thing [to resolve]. But it’s certainly receiving attention because if we were not having these high levels of breakdowns, we would not be having the load shedding today.”
On Friday, 23 September, Eskom said the Stage 5 and Stage 4 rolling blackouts planned for the weekend would be used to replenish the pumped storage dam levels that had been used extensively in the past week.
Graph illustrating energy availability factor (EAF) for Eskom’s coal fleet. (Source: Eskom data | graph: Clyde Mallinson)
The state-owned power utility said constraints from its diesel suppliers had affected the availability of bulk diesel to the Ankerlig and Gourikwa open cycle gas turbines, which have a combined capacity of 2,000MW.
On Sunday, Eskom said it was still experiencing “constraints” from its diesel supplier.
“While we expect diesel deliveries from Tuesday onwards, should this uncertainty of supply persist, higher stages of load shedding may be required,” said Eskom in a statement.
“While some generation units are anticipated to return to service, it is necessary to continue the load shedding to conserve emergency generation reserves,” Eskom said. DM
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Is it not possible to repurpose these gas turbines to use ethanol? We have a glut of sugar; it would provide work for many small cane farmers who are currently sitting idle, and save vast amounts of foreign exchange.
Many of the gas turbines are to be converted to natural gas. For example, Ankerlig in the Western Cape is to be supplied from the Ibhubesi project, which is only scheduled to go into production in 2025.
Managing diesel capacity and logistics is not rocket science. Is it just incompetence that Eskom has not been able to secure sufficient storage and supply capacity of diesel for its open cycle gas turbines? Storage tanks are not difficult to install. What about a dedicated pipeline to supply diesel? At the very least Eskom could hand out tenders to ANC cadres for adequate road tanker supply!
Incompetence and outright theft, by Eskom staff, trucking companies, and even SAPS.
See the DM article from May “Fuel thieves siphon off millions from Mpumalanga Eskom power station”
Let’s look at this. 1. The diesel units are emergency sources. 2. Eskom consumes diesel faster than it can replenish diesel. Riiiight! Here’s praying for only short emergencies….
Don’t forget, Johan. Much of the diesel is also stolen, at the power station!
16,739MW out due to breakdowns. This is so difficult to understand. Surely it was possible to do proper maintenance of one generator at a time over the last 15 years of load shedding. No wonder everyone is telling the ANC and its members to hamba!