Eskom warns that power system will take 10 days to recover

• 6 years ago (2018-06-19)
• David Flin

Africa 306 Coal 282

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Eskom has warned that the South African power system could take up to ten days to recover from the effects of the recently-resolved industrial action. Eskom thanked customers for using electricity sparingly on Sunday, allowing it to avoid blackouts during peak usage periods.

Eskom said that over the last week, it had to initiate power shedding, which it said were the result of “acts of intimidation and sabotage” at some power stations, amid industrial action by trade unions. The unions were protesting against a wage freeze. Pravin Gordhan, South Africa’s Public Enterprises Minister, said that this was no longer options, and announced that negotiations over salary increases would resume “with immediate effect.”

The estimated 10-day prognosis for full restoration was due to the interruptions of continuous processes at the power plants, Eskom said. It said: “These processes now have to be cleared out and restarted, which will take additional time.” These include coal management and transportation. Eskom said that it had been unable to transport coal from its stock yards to its coal bunkers due to the absence of operating staff. It also said that there was likely to be a significant increase in plant outages and a bottleneck in routine maintenance due to the lack of resources to optimally operate a plant, such as ash clearing, and mechanical failures that occurred during the industrial action. “For example, smaller stations can only return units roughly every 24 hours due to demineralised water limitations, and some stations that are operating at high output have to manage their ash levels to achieve optimal productions. These stations are expected to only return to normality by 21 June.”