Eskom’s blackouts increase

050910 Electricity pylons carry power from Cape Town's Koeberg nuclear power plant July 17, 2009. South Africa will need 20 gigawatts (GW) of new power generation capacity by 2020 and would require double that amount a decade later to meet rising demand, the country's power utility said September 7, 2009. Picture taken July 17, 2009. REUTERS/Mike Hutchings (SOUTH AFRICA ENERGY BUSINESS)

050910 Electricity pylons carry power from Cape Town's Koeberg nuclear power plant July 17, 2009. South Africa will need 20 gigawatts (GW) of new power generation capacity by 2020 and would require double that amount a decade later to meet rising demand, the country's power utility said September 7, 2009. Picture taken July 17, 2009. REUTERS/Mike Hutchings (SOUTH AFRICA ENERGY BUSINESS)

Published Nov 20, 2012

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Unplanned outages rose to 5‚524 Megawatts (MW) on November 19 from 5‚480MW on November 15‚ Eskom said on Tuesday in its 90th system status bulletin.

Eskom will release its interim results to the end of September today.

Planned maintenance was steady at 3‚371MW on November 19‚ the same as on November 15 and November 12.

Available capacity was only 33‚963MW compared with peak demand of 31‚783MW on November 19 resulting in a margin of only 6.4%. The international norm is to have a margin of 15%.

Eskom’s internal benchmark is to have no more than 3‚600MW in unplanned maintenance‚ a benchmark it has so far missed more than 60% of the time so far this year. The last time it achieved this benchmark or below was on August 14.

Peak demand is forecast at 31‚680MW on Tuesday‚ 31‚651MW on Wednesday and 31‚754MW on Thursday. - I-Net Bridge

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