South Africa's Power Security Teeters on Edge, Hit by Outages, Strikes and Faulty Welds

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Written by Richard Finlayson, Senior International Editor for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--In recent days, South Africa's power supply from state-owned utility Eskom has been running near the ragged edge, with the reserve margins available at only 2%, when accepted industry norms require 10% to 15%.

In addition to the scheduled and unscheduled maintenance carried out at power stations, the 900-megawatt (MW) Unit 1at the Koeberg nuclear plant in the Western Cape tripped on February 20 due to an electrical fault. A second fault recently was discovered, which has delayed the return of the unit until April.

Eskom also reported that plant performance on the grid continued to be volatile and that the power system was very tight. Adding to the plant's fragility, the transmission line from the Cahora Bassa hydropower scheme in Mozambique is still under repair, following damage caused by flooding from the Limpopo River.

The 4,800-MW Medupi mega-thermal power station construction project had been shut down by a seven-week workers strike, which is now over, and then by the discovery of welding faults in the first unit boiler. Medupi had been scheduled to start feeding power to the grid last year, but the date was pushed back to the end of 2013 due to equipment delivery delays; and it may be pushed back again into 2014. The commissioning of Medupi will be a major step forward for the security of South Africa's power supply.

The faulty welding was discovered in boilers being manufactured by Hitachi Power Africa. In December, Eskom was informed that less than 1% of welds had not been done to specification. There are a total of 17,000 welds in each boiler.

Eskom said last week that quality issues had been identified. Hitachi had assured them that the problem would have no effect on the schedule: "We continue to follow all out contractual remedies if there is non-performance or issues. We are reassessing our schedule a result of labor issues, as well as this (welding) issue and all other challenges that exist in a project of this nature. We will report publicly once we have a firm way forward."

Industrial Info Resources (IIR), with global headquarters in Sugar Land, Texas, and eight offices outside of North America, is the leading provider of global market intelligence specializing in the industrial process, heavy manufacturing and energy markets. Industrial Info's quality-assurance philosophy, the Living Forward Reporting Principle™, provides up-to-the-minute intelligence on what's happening now, while constantly keeping track of future opportunities.