South Africa's state-owned power utility Eskom is implementing rolling load-shedding again, due to breakdowns affecting 25% of its installed power capacity (around 14 GW unavailable); the failure of a conveyor belt supplying coal to the Medupi power plant suspended power generation at the giant power complex. The group will effect "stage 2" load-shedding, corresponding to cutting up to 2 GW of power demand off the national power grid to avoid a collapse of the system.
South Africa has been facing similar load-shedding periods for years. Eskom is suffering from several operating and development issues at its coal-fired plants. The construction of two long-awaited giant coal-fired power projects, Kusile and Medupi (4.8 GW) each, is running years behind schedule and tens of billions of rands over budget. The first units that were commissioned between 2015 and 2017 are operating unreliably and are meeting many technical problems. In addition, many other coal-fired power plants are also experiencing failures due to insufficient maintenance. In December 2019, Eskom experienced unplanned breakdowns at its power plants (up to 14.2 GW unavailable), as the group was facing incessant rains that affected its coal supply ("wet" coal) and flooded some power plants,
Interested in Power Plants?
Enerdata has developed a market research service to screen, monitor and analyse the development of power generation assets.
Power Plant Tracker offers an interactive database and a powerful search engine covering power plants worldwide – including both installed and planned capacities for renewables and fossil fuels.