Business Maverick: Eskom works to increase reserve margin to thwart load shedding

With only a third of the required reserve margin, electricity supplier Eskom says it is prioritising maintenance to raise capacity to meet higher demand for electricity. After running for 164 days without load shedding, and while it cannot provide any guarantees, Eskom says it does not foresee the possibility of power rationing.

This is equivalent to less than 5% of Eskom’s 46,000MW total generating capacity. The normal practice is for electricity producers to keep spare capacity of 15% in order to meet any sudden spurt in demand. Eskom has less than three times this. All six generating units at Medupi, outside Lephalale in Limpopo, have now been connected and are contributing power to the national grid, with the last unit connected in late August.Even though the stations continue to generate power at nearly full capacity, Oberholzer said serious defects had been detected in their structures.We have some serious defects at Medupi and Kusile. We are fixing them.

The focus on maintenance resulted in the energy availability factor rising to 70.4% in the past three months, from 67.7% in the period ended March.

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