Transforming Eskom To Address SA's Energy Needs

Bheki Nxumalo, Head of Generation

By Jessie Taylor

South Africans have seen several months' respite from load shedding, in part thanks to the hard work of the head of Eskom’s generation division, Bheki Nxumalo.

Load shedding has been suspended for several months due to sustained generation capacity, adequate emergency reserves, and reduced electricity demand from the grid. The last time South Africa experienced such an extended suspension of load shedding was between December 2021 and February 2022.

Eskom said that its generation performance continues to surpass the winter forecast for this year, which anticipated a likely scenario of unplanned outages at 15 500MW, with load shedding limited to Stage 2.

Improved Generation

In April last year, Eskom announced the appointment of Mr Nxumalo as Group Executive Generation. His career in the energy sector spans over 20 years from junior to senior management and executive levels. He is an all-round business leader comfortable in governance, people and technical aspects of the role. Among his responsibilities is to passionately drive the execution of Eskom's recovery plan while inspiring staff.

Prior to this appointment, Mr Nxumalo was the Chief Executive Officer Eskom Enterprise and Eskom Rotek Industries. He has extensive operating, power station management and production experience. He was the Power Station Manager at two of Eskom’s power stations and the General Manager at Kusile Power Station. He also had a brief stint as Group Executive for Generation and Group Capital.

“I am truly honoured to be asked to lead Eskom Generation at this critical time. I literally grew up in Eskom. I strongly believe that Eskom has the technical and managerial capability to turn things around. The majority of Eskom employees are passionate about their work and company. I know that I can count on the support of my colleagues in Exco and the new Eskom board to make this a reality,” said Mr Nxumalo.

Part of the power utility's success in reducing load shedding has been due to a reduction in overall and peak electricity demand compared to previous years. The decline has been driven by increased private rooftop solar generation among households and businesses.

It has also been aided by Eskom’s coal fleet energy availability factor (EAF), which has significantly improved. The EAF shows the portion of Eskom’s total nominal capacity available to provide power over a certain period.

Eskom and electricity minister Kgosienthso Ramokgopa has credited the improvement to the implementation of Eskom’s Generation Recovery Plan, developed by the utility’s board, as well as key appointments such as Mr Nxumalo’s.

A Focused Approach

Since his appointment, Mr Nxumalo has reviewed senior posts at Eskom’s plants and power stations, which has resulted in several key leadership changes and a number of plans to address systemic issues affecting the business. Among the learnings gathered during the process was that six power stations contributed to 70% of Eskom’s unit failures, while five power stations were performing well.

To address this issue, plans were introduced to rapidly improve the six plants whose performance was below par and prioritise the maintenance schedule at these six plants. As a result of these changes, Eskom has conducted more maintenance in the last year than in the previous three.

“One of the stations identified was Kusile Power Station, where we were running one unit and it was also not running at full capacity. At Kusile now, we have actually taken it out of recovery station because it is running exceptionally well, on average above 90% availability," Mr Nxumalo said.

“It shows that we have taken the lessons from Medupi [power station], which has been consistently running at those levels. Kusile has now turned the corner." Improvements have also been noted at Majuba, Matla, Duvha and Kriel power stations, which are all located in Mpumalanga.

“With the work that we’ve done, we’ve seen a significant improvement at Majuba in terms of reduction of partial load losses and also trips at that plant. That plant is also running exceptionally well, so is Matla power station as well," said Mr Nxumalo. “Duvha has been doing exceptionally well, except for the boiler failures but on average, Duvha is on the right track. It is actually performing much better than it was a year ago. Kriel power station is also seeing good improvement."

Source: My Broadband | Eskom | SA News