Imported supply of 1‚300 Megawatts (MW) from Cahora Bassa‚ which was lost on January 10 due to a fault on the transmission line from Mozambique has been restored‚ Eskom said in its 106th system status bulletin.
This transmission fault cut the margin between available capacity and peak demand to only 4.1% on January 10 before increasing to 7.0% on January 14. The international norm is to have a 15% margin.
Unplanned outages in Eskom’s domestic generating capacity rose to 5‚008MW on January 14 from 4‚871MW on January 10 and 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‚125MW on January 16 as factories restart operations after the Christmas break. - I-Net Bridge