PROBLEMS at two power stations, Majuba and Tutuka, yesterday forced Eskom to cut as much as 2 000MW of power for the second day in a row, prompting an outcry from businesses.
The utility said the power cuts were a result of two units at Majuba being out of service and one unit at Tutuka being out of commission.
On Monday, Eskom cut 2 000MW after unplanned capacity failures reached 10 515MW, the most since the company started releasing twice-weekly data in January 2012.
“At any given point in time, there may be several units out on planned or unplanned maintenance at the power stations. One of the main reasons for the unplanned outages is boiler tube leaks.
“We also get other issues like partial load losses due to poor coal quality,” said Eskom.
Both Majuba and Tutuka are coal-fired power plants located in Mpumalanga. Eskom said its system was expected to be extremely constrained in what was expected to be a difficult week for its grid.
“It’s about plants coming back from maintenance,” said Shaun Nel, a spokesman for the Energy Intensive Users Group of Southern Africa.
Hank Langenhoven, the chief economist at the Steel and Engineering Industries Federation of SA, said the impact of ongoing power cuts was ”massive and disruptive”.
In another development, Eskom said it had funds to pay for diesel to run its turbines until the end of March, averting a crisis that could have seen it lose 5 percent of its capacity, a government source said. – Siphamandla Goge, Additional reporting by Reuters and Bloomberg