Three steps forward, four steps back.
That’s the kind of ‘sense’ to be made when power utility Eskom announces that three power generating units have been repaired – at Kendal, Camden and Medupi.
Unfortunately, while the local government elections were under way yesterday, a further four units broke down over a 24-hour period.
Hendrina and Lethabo power stations each lost the use of a unit, whereas at Arnot two units went offline.
The utility said 15 582 megawatts had been lost, with a further 4 036 MW taken off the grid for maintenance.
In total, 19 618 MW have been lost to the country’s power requirement.
To put that in perspective, last week Business Tech reported that “unexpected power station breakdowns, delays in returning to service some other units under maintenance, and the quicker-than-expected depletion of emergency systems resulted in nearly 15 000 MW of capacity being out of action – that was nearly half of the power utility’s coal-powered fleet”.
Unsurprisingly, Eskom has issued a short-notice load-shedding alert.
More significantly, professional service firm PwC has summarised October’s return of load-shedding to South Africa in one word – dire!
It warned that the country’s GDP could contract by three percentage points because of grid instability.
The real cost to the economy, it said, could be the loss of 350 000 potential jobs.
That’s also not all.
Interviewed by 702 recently, energy thought leader Mike Rossouw, a former adviser at the utility, spelled out his misgivings in plain English: “Eskom is near a total collapse.”
He said power units that broke down were repaired by people who lacked the required capability, resulting in units often being lost again soon after maintenance.
Moreover, people in charge, at ministerial level and at the utility itself, won’t listen to advice.
What could it lead to?
Said Rossouw: “I don’t see a light at the end of the tunnel. In fact, I see a big train coming down the tunnel at us.”
South Africa should prepare itself for a lot more load-shedding, Rossouw added.
And that’s not the worst-case scenario.
If Eskom runs the grid as it currently does, the country’s power network could collapse, resulting in a catastrophic loss of fundamental daily living requirements.
Just imagine, for example, no water coming out of your tap because it can’t be pumped there.
