Eskom tackles rising winter demand

File picture: Nic Bothma, EPA

File picture: Nic Bothma, EPA

Published May 28, 2016

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Johannesburg - As winter temperatures around the country begin to drop, Eskom has had to revise its weekend maintenance plans to ensure it meets the growing appetite for energy.

“An effective means of achieving our set goals is to continue conducting our outages diligently, paying exceptional attention to detail and making sure that we bring the units that were taken offline for maintenance back in time,” the parastatal said in a statement on Saturday.

“We remain committed to keeping unplanned breakdowns below 4000MW in order to enable us to meet demand without or with limited use of our open-cycle gas turbines (OCGTs).”

Just after 9pm on Monday, Eskom had a total of 37 067MW available capacity to meet demand – the highest in over four years.

“This is significant indeed, as it translates to an energy availability factor (EAF) of 83.4 percent.

“Our year-to-date performance is moving in the right direction with unplanned breakdowns (UCLF) reaching 10.90 percent, planned maintenance (PCLF) at 11.80 percent, and energy availability is now at 77.29 percent against the target of 80:10:10 (ie 80 percent energy availability, 10 percent planned maintenance, and 10 percent unplanned maintenance),” Eskom said.

– African News Agency

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