Melanie Gosling
Environment Writer
THE energy crisis will not be over until 2019 and South Africa will have to live with the risk of electricity shortages for the next five years, Eskom has warned.
There could also be blackouts in summer, Eskom’s acting chief executive, Collin Matjila, has told a joint meeting of Parliament’s energy and public enterprises committees.
He said the 2019 target coincided with the scheduled completion of the Medupi and Kusile coal-fired power stations.
The utility had given itself three to five years to turn around its generating capacity and to “arrest the decline, stabilise performance and implement improvements”, Matjila said.
MPs were told Medupi would start generating electricity on December 24 when the first of its six units came online.
This would be three and a half years over schedule.
“We will be making adjustments, tweaking the system and ramping up power into the grid on a gradual basis until full power in May or June,” Matjila said.
This would add 800MW to the national grid.
Medupi’s next unit would come online next December. Kusile would begin generating electricity from 2016. Kusile’s construction has been delayed by problems around funding.
Dan Marokane, Eskom group executive, said the construction of Medupi had been plagued by problems, including strikes estimated to have delayed it by a year. In addition there was poor productivity on site and “technical glitches”.
Lance Greyling (DA) asked whether Eskom would try to recoup from building contractors some of the money lost.
Greyling estimated that Eskom had lost about R26 billion a year in revenue, or close to R100bn in the 45 months’ delay in Medupi’s construction.
Added to this were the billions spent each year on running the open gas cycle turbines to keep the lights on and the money paid to Exxaro coal for the coal not used, which meant the delays had cost the economy about R120bn.
Greyling said Eskom should be “clawing back” some of that lost revenue from contractors.
Marokane replied that Eskom had reviewed the cause of Medupi’s delays, and had begun managing claims against contractors.
“It will be a bloody one because we’re going to be dragging each other into court.”
Marokane said some site supervisors, used to working in Europe, had been unable to cope with the levels of stress on the Medupi construction site.
Matjila said costs incurred would normally be recovered in the tariffs a year later, which would affect Eskom’s cash flows. This was one of the reasons it had taken the “unprecedented steps” of enforcing penalties against Medupi contractors.
Some contracts had been terminated, such as that to supply turbines. Another contractor had been brought in to ensure Medupi’s boilers complied with safety regulations.
“We also have claims against contractors for delays or non-performance. We’re beginning the process – and have counter-claims from contractors,” Matjila said.
Maintenance of Eskom’s ageing power stations would increase this summer, and there would be “half-station shutdowns” at three stations. This could lead to scheduled power cuts in summer.
Matjila said Westinghouse had withdrawn its legal action over the contract Eskom granted to Areva for the replacement of steam generators at the Koeberg nuclear power station.