Medupi error adds to Eskom's woes

Published Jan 19, 2015

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Johannesburg - Eskom is facing fresh challenges related to the testing and connection to the grid of Medupi power station’s long-awaited first unit, which missed its deadline last month.

According to a weekend newspaper report, Eskom was facing problems with a mechanical error at Medupi’s Mitsubishi Hitachi boiler.

The boiler failed to meet international standards that require the steam to reach a velocity of 200 metres a second. Currently, the steam is produced at 180m a second.

DA spokeswomen for public enterprises Natasha Michael said Eskom appeared to be ignoring the advice of its technical team, but nevertheless was ready to bring the boiler to life.

She warned that this approach carried incredible risk.

“If the boiler turbines of Unit 6 are damaged and the power station is further delayed, it will wreak havoc on our economy,” she said.

However, Eskom spokesman Khulu Phasiwe said the advice that Eskom had received from engineers was that there were no risks with the boiler.

He agreed that according to international standards the steam that was supposed to come out of the tubes from the boiler were supposed to travel at 200m a second.

“According to our tests, the steam has been running at 180m per second, but because it is running at a lower speed, Eskom will need to reduce its maintenance schedule for the turbine from the planned 25 years to 23 years,” he said.

Eskom has been battling to keep on the lights.

Schools in the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, Northern Cape and Western Cape reopen this week and that could add to Eskom’s electricity woes.

However, Eskom said yesterday that the country’s grid would probably remain constrained this week, but there were no plans for power cuts.

In its latest power update, Eskom said the capacity to meet today’s evening peak demand was 31 931 megawatts (MW) compared with forecast demand of 30 497MW.

Tomorrow could be a close call as the available capacity for the evening demand was 30 836MW, including cycle gas turbines, while demand was expected to be 30 710MW, the utility added.

Phasiwe said some breakdowns experienced last week were minor and did not result in load shedding.

Eskom had maintenance planned for this week, which was part of a continuous programme, as the power utility tried to reduce its maintenance backlog, he added.

“Maintenance work will carry on until we have made a serious impact on the backlog,” he said.

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