Pretoria - Public Enterprises Minister Malusi Gigaba says he remains concerned about the delays in the process of the Medupi power station coming into operation.
Briefing Parliament in his regular Eskom State of the System update on Tuesday, Gigaba said: “I remain concerned about the delays on Medupi coming online, which are forecasted in mid-2014.
“My department, along with the Eskom board and management, are undertaking recovery work in relation to welding faults and control and instrumentation.
“We are awaiting the report of the independent consultants which I had announced during the annual financial results of Eskom.”
Gigaba said until the maintenance is sustained at appropriate levels and the new power station comes online, the power system will remain tight.
The new dry-cooled, coal-fired Medupi station is being built by Eskom near Lephalale in Limpopo. When completed, the power station will have six boilers each powering an 800 MW turbine, producing 4 800 MW of power. It is expected to become the largest dry-cooled, coal-fired power station in the world.
Sustainable power generation
Gigaba also announced that the Eskom board has approved a Generation Sustainability Strategy, which aims to improve the technical performance of generation in the long-term in a sustainable manner.
Gigaba said this would also minimise the negative impact on Eskom's ability to “keep the lights on”.
The strategy will focus on achieving reliable plant availability and increase the number of planned maintenance, thereby reducing unplanned maintenance.
Eskom remains central in the provision of adequate and reliable electricity to support economic growth and the country’s developmental imperatives.
However, the minister said the company faced a number of challenges related to plant maintenance, securing the correct quality of coal and delays in the new build programme.
Gigaba also announced that as of August 31, of the nine units Eskom had committed to long duration generation maintenance over winter, five have been completed, three are in execution and one is due to be released in the next weeks.
In completing the scheduled maintenance, Gigaba said Eskom was reassuring the country of reliable electricity generation, which will ensure that the lights are kept on.
He said his department will continue to interact with and monitor Eskom’s progress in implementing measures to ensure reliable electricity supply on a weekly basis and to ensure that the continuity of the progress made to date is sustained.
From April until July 2013, the electricity system was extremely tight, particularly when the winter peaked.
Gigaba said there was a greater need to save more electricity, especially over the evening peak periods (between 5pm and 9pm) when the system was at the most constrained.
“Just to put this into context, I indicated that within this peak time, South Africa’s electricity demand rises by more than 3 000 MW, which is larger than all SADC countries combined,” he said. - SAnews.gov.za
