Eskom: Mozambique fault cuts supply

050910 Electricity pylons carry power from Cape Town's Koeberg nuclear power plant July 17, 2009. South Africa will need 20 gigawatts (GW) of new power generation capacity by 2020 and would require double that amount a decade later to meet rising demand, the country's power utility said September 7, 2009. Picture taken July 17, 2009. REUTERS/Mike Hutchings (SOUTH AFRICA ENERGY BUSINESS)

050910 Electricity pylons carry power from Cape Town's Koeberg nuclear power plant July 17, 2009. South Africa will need 20 gigawatts (GW) of new power generation capacity by 2020 and would require double that amount a decade later to meet rising demand, the country's power utility said September 7, 2009. Picture taken July 17, 2009. REUTERS/Mike Hutchings (SOUTH AFRICA ENERGY BUSINESS)

Published Jan 11, 2013

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Imported supply of 1‚300 Megawatts (MW) from Cahora Bassa was lost on January 10 due to a fault on the transmission line from Mozambique‚ Eskom said in its 105th system status bulletin.

This transmission fault cut the margin between available capacity and peak demand to only 4.1%. The international norm is to have a 15% margin.

Eskom managed to stabilise the frequency of the power system with the help of agreements it has in place with industrial customers.

Unplanned outages in Eskom’s domestic generating capacity eased to 4‚871MW on January 10 from 5‚572MW on January 7.

Eskom’s internal benchmark is to have no more than 3‚600MW in unplanned maintenance‚ a benchmark it missed more than 60% of the time last year. The last time it achieved this benchmark prior to November 29 was on August 14.

Peak demand was expected to jump from 24‚819MW on December 26 to 30‚333MW on January 16 as factories restart operations after the Christmas break. - I-Net Bridge

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