Eskom ... is there ANY chance? In CPT there is

General Discussions
2541

I’m optimistically going to say yes. If they can keep breakdowns under control. But a big part of me fears that they’ve been running these coal plants harder than last year to make things look better (Molefe style or maybe Sputla style) which means breakdowns will now start increasing again.

As far as I remember a big reason why we went (and stayed) at high levels of loadshedding towards the end of winter last year was because Eskom ran out of money for the OCGTs. I believe it’s been budgeted this year to run them a lot more. Yes, I know OCGTs are meant for emergencies, but Eskom is an emergency.

I guess a question that I have is if the IPP OCGTs cost comes out of the general OCGT budget or a planned IPP budget. Because I’m seeing a lot more OCGTs being run, but I don’t see them reporting how many of them are from IPP’s like they used to report, but I’m guessing it’s included in the IPP Availability stat.

Last night’s stats:
image

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2542

You will be able to see most of that on the Eskom supply side dashboard (albeit delayed)

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2543

All I can think of, every time we have LS, we have solar sales, panic buys, and the resultant stock shortages.

Then Eskom gives a respite, and wham, we have an oversupply of equipment, a drop in prices.

This has been going on year after year after year.

The thing that I noticed in all of that … after every single “respite” by Eskom … it gets worse when they slip again.

Every. Single. Time.

Here is my bet: We are going to see Stage 10 in Jan 2024.

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2544

If I see the rate of private PV deployments I doubt it.
Maybe in the evening peaks we will have a problem but during the daytime it will only get easier.

2545

Wife visited a friend last night. When LS hit, they were having wine around a fire. The family is 100% ok with LS and no solar.

Looking at the suburbs all around us, how little solar is installed. Gennies and UPS’s a bit more.

People who wanted/could go solar have dunnit. The rest who can still do that is a tougher sell I hazard to guess, due to funds, economy, other considerations, or they made alternative plans like gas cooking, etc.

That a lot of solar is still being installed looking at solar installers schedules, most definitely.

That more affluent businesses are onto, going onto solar, is also true.

But for SA, the big picture, maybe in another few years before solar will make a serias dent in homes, becoming the “norm”, where most of the areas around us have panels installed.

We are getting there … but not today.

EDIT: It is like the 2nd, 3rd wave we are now at ito solar installs. The low-hanging fruits have been picked in other words.
To continue riding the next “waves”, we need serious infrastructure improvements nationally.

2546

I agree, the residential PV market is probably not going to save us. (In the short term)
Its going to be large commercial clients typically on 200+kVA connections that are deploying PV that will move the needle, those installations can also typically be financed quite easily and logistically its much easier putting up 300kWp at one site than that same 300kWp spread over 60+ residential houses.

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2547

And that is where we are running into infrastructure challenges as reported. Eskoms distribution network split, and the requirement of 1000’s of km of new lines to be installed, and upgraded.

Adding the generation is relatively “easy”, takes a year or two, or three. Getting the power to where it is needed, THAT is the next challenge.

The likes of Woollies, Pnp, and Shoprite, factories, Vodacom, all are helping. But in the big picture, we have to seriously expand that thinking. And batts, lots and lots of big ass batteries.

I’m not negative, but it is not as easy as it sounds, I gathered reading many articles.

See how long it is taking CoCT to get a stage, or two dropped.

Will go faster in time, but infrastructure expansion/upgrades need attention to ride the next “waves”, and that takes serious capital AND time.

Or I could be totally wrong.

2548

I am not even talking about people exporting or dedicated IPP plants, I am talking about companies just reducing their grid consumption your average “medium” size business on a tariff rate like Eskom’s Ruraflex, there are thousands of them out there, no grid infrastructure needed.
Sure you are not getting the best possible solar resource (That same panel could produce more kWh annually in a place like the Northern Cape)
But its good enough most of the time :slight_smile:

No, you are not wrong, plenty of investment needed and time, but there might be more low hanging fruit than you think :slight_smile:

2549

One must not miss the Duck Curve …

The key issue, as I have deduced, where power generation kicks in, is late afternoon, early mornings … days, weeks of bad weather … where we need the most investment.

Where renewables cannot carry it … the reference to big-ass batteries.

2550

There is another angle on this. Cities being allowed to procure or build their own capacity. While Eskom might not have power lines for large solar farms in out of the way places, doing that on a slightly smaller scale in a metro is significantly easier, and since up to 100MW is now allowed, I agree… there might be significant low-hanging fruit.

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2551

YES!!!

Decentralizing the gird. Read up a lot way back on how Victron, SMA et al suggested how to do that.

Even on suburb level!

The ONLY stumbling block I can see, as the tech is there, everything is there … how to get the Munics to “buy in” … or is that “buy them”?

2552

The Duck curve… Two things there, distribute Solar and Wind generation helps a bit with weather related issues, raining here, sunny else where. Then Battery storage, store the excess that is not directly consumed, even at the battery loss % we still better off and the grid can manage said duck curve better.

Is this a cure all, nope, not for the weather nor the duck curve. But, but with enough battery storage, like in a few days (make that about 4-5 days) we can cure most of bad weather and the duck.

Currently it is expensive to install that much storage, just ask me with 40kWh battery bank. But then again, the alternative is just horrifying, no electricity and that will prove much much more expensive.

DuurGroetnis

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2553

We have a comfortable 3GW (I am just not sure for how many hours that can be sustained) in pumped hydro storage which is plenty, but at some point you do need some excess energy to get that water back up the hill.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Eskom start looking at more pumped hydro projects for the meduim to long term stability of the grid, Eskom could even one day when its split into different businesses create new business models for itself e.g a PV plant in the Northern Cape could have a wheeling agreement with a user in CPT, and when that plant needs to “bank” energy they can pay Eskom a storage fee for the deemed storage of that energy.
So Eskom could also theoretically have a “Storage rate” for PV plants.

Honestly the future is looking more and more interesting by the day, sometimes things sadly have to breakdown to such a level that everyone wants things to change, and sometimes they change for the better :slight_smile:

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2554

Some general info contained in the same briefings that the media, and some actual news sites, use for the rage baiting headlines but seem to not really report:

The general assumption for the winter plan going into winter 2023 was that peak demand would reach about 34000MW and that the unplanned losses would not improve much above about 18000MW.

Up till this Monday demand was lower than forecast and the unplanned losses did actually imrpove to the 15000-16000MW range.

The actual budget and/or true costs of the OCGT use does not appear to be made public but so far they have been running the OCGT’s less than anticipated - and apparently chose at times to NOT use them to reduce diesel costs, where OCGT use could actually have avoided loadshedding entirely for a period.

Also, where the initial winter plan was to keep planned maintenance under 2500MW, with the initial lower than anticipated demand they actually increased the units taken of for planned maintenance (i.e. not emergency fixes but medium-long term focussed maintenance) to over 5000MW at times. More maintenance was also done over weekends (should explain increased LS over weekends where the week had lower LS).

Not necessarily just business as usual. Allegedly there is a specific effort, through the use of private sector skills and OEM involvement at the problem power stations to both identify the major sources of preventable breakdowns and transfer skills/knowledge to the current plant engineers/managers.

Just to make sure we hit a new record…I think we will just squeeze through winter missing stage 8. The impact of the cold this week over most of the country but especially the north/interior is possibly made worse by the school holidays? It seems there is a constant demand approaching what Eskom was anticipating as a max peak of nearing that 34000MW mark. We will not see stage 10 in summer.

If the unplanned losses do not increase significantly again over the next 2 months (i.e. up to end August) I think we should have a clearer picture of the general chance of success of reaching some generation consistency.

and before we look at sport and the weather…apparently there is a process underway to negotiate a shorter contract period for Karpowerships to be considered.

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2555

Drakensberg (4 x 250MW units) based on maximum dam capacity apparently 1 x 250MW unit for about 102 hours - all 4 units for about 26 hours.

Ingula (4x 333MW units) based on maximum dam capacity apparently about 16 hours all 4 units

Not sure if applies to all but for Drakensberg at least it is stated that

For every 4 hours pumped back only about 2.6 -3 generating hours are obtained.

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2556

Dude, whenever I start reading your posts, I know I’m going to come out educated.

In all these discussions, I am always reminded of what CS Lewis wrote about how we want our enemies to be worse (so we can hate them). And in many ways, I think that is how some of us look at the government we didn’t vote for, and everything they touch.

Suppose one reads a story of filthy atrocities in the paper. Then suppose that something turns up suggesting that the story might not be quite true, or not quite so bad as it was made out. Is one’s first feeling, “Thank God, even they aren’t quite so bad as that”, or is it a feeling of disappointment, and even a determination to cling to the first story for the sheer pleasure of thinking your enemies are as bad as possible? If it is the second then it is, I am afraid, the first step in a process which, if followed to the end, will make us into devils. You see, one is beginning to wish that black was a little blacker. If we give that wish its head, later on we shall wish to see grey as black, and then to see white itself as black. Finally we shall insist on seeing everything — God and our friends and ourselves included — as bad, and not be able to stop doing it: we shall be fixed for ever in a universe of pure hatred.

Frequently, these days, evidence turns up that even they aren’t as bad as we’ve been made to think.

I miss the days when I was more positive. And I value the positive contributions :slight_smile:

2557

Palmiet has 2x 200MW turbines, seems like it can go for ~25 hours (10GWh storage)

Steenbrass has 4x 45MW turbines apparently if the bottom reservoir is empty it can go for 12 hours. so also ~2GWh of storage.

2558

+1 to that. It really is appreciated!

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2559

Every single time when I read the balanced and informative views from our own “Villiage Idiot”, one feels better.

We need that.

Thank you.

Ps. Don’t you now become the “benchmark” of how bad it is …

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2560

Ok, I thought about it all. The posts above, no LS, 24h later LS.

Think we are way too kind and are being bamboozled.

What are the decade-old steps for this winter in and around LS reasoning?
Let me quote: On Sunday he said:

  • “will not experience the worst-case scenario”.
  • “We are surpassing our expectations in relation to the performance of the units and we are more than confident that we should be able to survive the winter,” he said.
  1. Load reduces and LS levels drop, the Minister “brags” he’s “dunnit, saved the day, no more LS”. It is also cooler, so look how well the stations perform. Like maybe “the others did it wrong … ?”
  2. Gets really cold, the load increases, helloooo, it is winter(!) and wham, “out of the blue”, magically, having done no maintenance in winter as stated, the inevitable “repeat phrases” … “loss of additional generating units overnight” … “unplanned losses” …
  3. Followed by “ginormous diesel usage” …
  4. And we hit stage 6 … with additional levels planned for by ESKOM!

Now guys, with all and everything being said, having been said … why do we keep on mansplaining to each other that this is getting better? It is NOT!

No new builds, no maintenance, reduction in load, who knows really, maybe it is because of businesses closing?

Eskom, the base/core supplier of power, like when it snows, cannot supply. They can nurse it, make it sound and look good, but Eskom, the base/core power supplier of SA cannot supply SA when there are adverse weather conditions.

Until alternative supplies can take up the shortfall every time all the time, weather or no weather, can send power from one side to the other side of the country, bigg-ass-batteries, we may have respites of LS, but NOTHING is getting better as Eskom, the base/core load supplier of SA, is broken. No nice words can mansplain that away.

More “loss of additional generating units overnight” … “unplanned losses” … are just inevitable.

NOTHING is getting better ito the base/core load until alternative suppliers can take over one EOL power station after another.

Now the problem is … to get the alternative sources in place, to carry SA through everything, will not happen by end of 2023, or 2024, or 2025 … Karpower just a bandaid, to pay for elections.

A “Radical Electricity SA Plan” (RESAP) is needed. It involves every single person in SA.