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

General Discussions
3158

All I can say is, it takes months, years to plan and execute maintenance. We know AdeR was ramping that up. The maintenance done and scheduled under his tenure must start to be noticeable by now. I mean, we cannot be positive about De Ruyter, and negative about what he did at the same time. We should not make the same mistake as the social media peanut gallery, who attributes anything that happened last week to this week’s calamities.

Or in short… I think some of the improvements are due to maintenance done, and that it is real, not fake.

Is it enough? No, not in the long term. Is it still possible to snatch defeat from the clutches of victory? You bet. Will it happen? Given the track record, yeah I won’t argue with you. Still a lot of ways this can go wrong, as evidenced by all the red in that document.

3159

Yes, he was adamant about that … and then he got “fired”.

All the plans he made, the drive he offered when he “left” in a “huff and a puff” (from ANC perspective), did the Eskom board/Gordhan/station managers actually follow through with the plan laid down by De Ruyter? Or where they “throw out with the boss”?

Or was it all “just for show”, the “huffing and puffing”, and his plans were indeed “driven through Eskom”?

Cause our Energy “figurehead” Minister said similar … reaping at rimes De Ruyter, hence I wondered.

Overnight a turnaround … as you said:

I have this sick feeling, looking at SARS “collections” and what Godongwana is saying, that there is a large shrinkage in the economy.

Now economists will give graphs of how the economy is growing … but I wonder, like the hours after the Titanic struck that iceberg, (EDIT) the “ship’s crew downplayed the danger, many passengers remained optimistic, and many people on board acted so calmly”.

… and the tensions in the northern hemisphere are not helping!!! The oil price can affect us rather severely in the coming months, the cost to run the OCGT’s.

I wonder.

3160

Added that … the calmness the passengers experienced during that tragedy.

Eskom, SA?

3161

But he wasn’t fired because of this. He was fired for that interview on eNCA (bringing the company into disrepute). That in turn happened because he was poisoned, and that was just the last straw. But also remember, he had already resigned at this point as well.

Again, these things have way too much momentum. It takes 6 to 18 months to plan the maintenance of a station. I’m pretty sure some of that momentum was kept. I don’t think it will be kept under the “acting CEO” setup.

No, not overnight. Took months to get here. And we only just BARELY got to a good place and it can easily go the other way again. We just need one or two large breakages, and those can still happen.

3162

Interesting to see your views now. :slight_smile:

3163

My views are always going up and down. But mostly… I have a huge aversion to any kind of boogeyman theory. Any story that does a post hoc ergo propter hoc move. Any story that says “oh, upcoming election… therefore”. Yes, some of that it is probably true, but the real world is always a lot more messy.

The present “sudden recovery” is neither sudden, nor will it last. If the trend is upwards, we should expect that some weeks will still be worse than others. If the trend is downwards, we should also expect that some weeks will be better than others. My feeling is that we are at the end of an upwards trend (started by De Ruyter) and at the start of a downwards trend (because the Eskom ship has no captain). We’re having a a good week, but it will probably turn.

3164

My view yes… I think we mustn’t underestimate the organisation behind the process… corruption, etc on the scale we are witnessing isn’t haphazard. No way it can be - it needs high level support or treading water. The lack of prosecutions due to Zondo report speaks to this. Other “money storage” cases the same.

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3165

In winter, due to coolness, the generation ran better we were told during that respite.

Then wham, we were hit hard.

Now it is heading to summer, no coolness, yes more renewables (but NOT evenings) than in winter, and we have no drama.

All of this in months/weeks … power generation scale at Eskom works in years, not months/weeks, to sort things out properly.

Hence my reference to “sudden recovery”.

But this I do agree with:

3166

There is seven ships in Mossel Bay’s bay…lots of diesel being off loaded.

Confirmed by PetroSA

3167

Ready - steady - … OCGT…

3168

Indeed! In my small valley in the deep south we have a water pressure issue: It sometimes oscillates wildly or goes ballistic and other times has no water at all. This isn’t even a political matter, it’s simply that they have stretched the water supply from the resevoir in Simonstown too far and wide.
So to fix this they have added a ‘booster’ pump somewhere along the pipeline…
This results in the aging asbestos pipes bursting and failing every week or so.
Do you think I can get a handle on what’s going on? The answer is no!
I need to conduct my own independent forensic investigation.
So the Eskom conundrum will require a far deeper investigation…

3169

Well who do you believe?

3170
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3171

Yeah, read that this morning and thought … mmmm, bar the complexity of the maintenance, politically it would be beneficial for the ANC to not have Koeberg returned at “full power”.

CoCT gains too much, lowering LS levels and all that.

But that would be speculation. Spreading rumors.

“Boogeyman theory”: :slight_smile:

:rofl:

3172

PC will kill this World. It is used to shut down stuff people say that others don’t like, branded false or misinformation. Like accusing someone of murder, same effect really, or of being a racist. Bekotsingswaardig….

Nobody are asking, are to afraid to I guess, why are we not building, or at least planning to build new base load generation…. Oh wait, the elites decidede net Zero, because reasons, to many people in this World. And our own CancER is stealing so much, there is nothing left to pay. The 8 Billion or so that we receive as handout loan may only be used for renewables eh, see how that works. We can help, but only for renewables, and we say thank you, you so kind.

No Next big Battery storage project (Just 2 phases of the one BESS), no new coal plant, heaven forbid we cannot get those build anyhow, look at the current disasters at Medupi and Kusile. EIA for project Bravo (Kusile) was kicked off in Feb 2006, this after a few years of deciding and then deciding not to build and then deciding to build again. 18 years we hope to when the last unit will be synchronised and delivering.

The design production capacity was to have been -800MW nett per unit. Now today, the nett output to the grid is less than half that at about 350MW per unit, and it cannot get above that. Wrong design of the boilers for our coal, and that is besides all the kak they add to the coal that kills the crushers and boiler linings and cleaning equipment.

This place should have started to plan to build new a long time ago, at least 10 to q5 years ago, but no…. Koeberg is a case in point, pressure vessel concrete cracked so bad, a full pressure test is now mandated to be done as to prove the integrity. Repair will be required tho. No maintenance time to have had this done at the time of inspection, because run full tilt or blackout and political as well as career suicide.

So here we are then, no new build base load plans, the BESS projects are nowhere yet, base load inadequate currently anyhow, IPPs nowhere quick enough, no transmission capability for added PV or Wind as the capacity is in the wrong place. Fooked if you ask me, but it is just an opinion and likely to be branded as disinfo.

Luckily there is nothing to cancel :saluting_face::coat:. Groetnis

3173

South Africa’s Eskom Starts Construction Of Its First Utility Scale Battery Energy Storage Project

Published

December 8, 2022

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We are starting to see a lot of large grid battery projects taking off around the world. Several years ago, the ‘Big Battery” in Australia, the biggest in the world at that time, was making all the headlines. Australia is going big on these battery projects with several other active projects and another one, the massive 850 MW/1680 MWh project in New South Wales by Akaysha Energy, is in the works.

In California, ESS Flow Battery will supply 200 MW/2 GWh of energy storage to the Sacramento Municipal Utility District. In the United Kingdom, Zenobē, the EV fleet and battery storage specialist, also announced this week that is has started construction on groundbreaking battery storage projects to bring its total storage portfolio in Scotland To 1,050 MW / 2,100 MWh. The battery storage projects which will cost £750 million in total are being constructed at Blackhillock, Kilmarnock South, and Eccles. The Blackhillock project is 300 MW / 600 MWh, with Phase 1 (200 MW / 400 MWh) due to go live in H1 2024, Kilmarnock South is 300 MW / 600 MWh, with Phase 1 (200 MW / 400 MWh) due to go live in H2 2024, and Eccles is 400 MW / 800 MWh and due to go live in H1 2026.

The good news is that some of this battery storage action is now coming to South Africa! Today, South Africa’s national electricity utility company Eskom,and Hyosung Heavy Industries, one of the appointed service providers for the Eskom Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) project, announced that the construction of the first energy storage facility under Eskom’s flagship BESS project kicked off yesterday. The kickoff ceremony was held at the Elandskop BESS site, located within Msunduzi and Impendle Local Municipalities in KwaZulu-Natal.

Construction will take between seven and twelve months and the batteries on the site will be charged from the main grid via Eskom’s Elandskop substation. The facility will have a capacity of 8 MW, equivalent to 32 MWh of distributed electricity, enough to power a town such as Howick for four hours. Among the notable benefits of the BESS is that it will boost the network during peak hours, thereby reducing the strain on the network during peak hours.

“The beginning of the construction of the Elandskop BESS is a positive development in our efforts to alleviate the pressure on the national electricity grid,” said André de Ruyter, Eskom Group Chief Executive, speaking at the event. “This is a direct response to the urgent need to address South Africa’s long-running electricity crisis by adding more generation capacity, to the grid, and also to strengthen the grid by adding more storage and transforming capacity.”

Elandskop is part of Phase 1 of Eskom’s BESS project, which includes the installation of approximately 199 MW of additional capacity, with 833 MWh storage of distributed battery storage plants at eight Eskom Distribution substation sites throughout the country. This phase also includes about 2 MW of solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity.

3174

And for context, look to them planned timelines….

It was approved already 2019. Much of a pattern here…

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StadigeGroetnis

3175

This is the new grid capacity required, lines, transformers etc. A good read, timelines gonner get us, again, well kinda already got us….

https://www.engineeringnews.co.za/article/eskoms-new-grid-plan-says-53-gw-of-new-generation-must-be-connected-by-2032-2022-10-27

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ThydhardloopuitGroetnis

3176

Lets substantiate some claims:
Units at the new plant produce only about half of design spec. That means the costs are really double as planned….

That means Medupi will only have five operational generating units by its supposed project completion date.

It estimated the remaining investment cost for this power plant would be R18.95 billion, adding to the R126.05 billion Eskom claims to have spent on the plant as of August 2022.

Should Eskom stick to this budget, the total cost will be R145 billion, R10 billion more than Eskom said it would cost in August 2021.

That is R65 billion more than its original budget of R80 billion.

https://www.miningweekly.com/article/as-eskom-rolls-out-boiler-fixes-to-other-medupi-units-it-confirms-fgd-talks-with-world-bank-2020-05-21

The defects are believed to be generic to all units installed to date at both Medupi and Kusile, preventing them from attaining output levels in line with their 790 MW-plus nameplates.

It emerged earlier this year that most of the operating units at Medupi and Kusile were delivering at rates of between 350 MW and 400 MW.

My thinking is maybe they can get back to higher output after them rectifications, but at a cost, nor only financially to the taxpayers, but to the growth of RSA….

The anticipated price tag of two power stations has ballooned to R451bn, including the costs of interest during construction and fitting the plants with equipment needed to meet environmental standards, said Bloomberg News in an article in October.

That equates to Eskom’s entire current debt, a burden that’s left it unsustainable and reliant on a three-year, R128bn government bailout to remain solvent, it said.

K@kGroetnis

3177

I don’t like it when this argument is turned into a rich vs poor argument. I won’t say the science is settled (because I know the response to that is that “science is never settled”), but the margin of disagreement in this is so small that a conspiracy really cannot begin to explain it away.

It reminds me a bit of that time in 325 AD at Nicaea when a bunch of bishops disagreed, (it was 18 out 325 to start with, and only 2 by the end of it). Yet, to this day, the internet is rife with conspiracies that involve Constantine.