Power utility Eskom has begun to ramp down planned maintenance to ramp up energy availability for the winter season.

“Our winter plan formally kicked off on 1 April 2016 and runs until end of August 2016. As a result, we have already started to ramp down planned maintenance and ramp up energy availability for the expected winter peak so that we will have sufficient capacity to meet demand whilst we still conduct the required maintenance on our power station units,” said Eskom on Tuesday.

The power utility had used this past weekend to recover some of its power station units by putting them on “opportunity” maintenance as the demand for electricity was low and there was excess generating capacity.

This followed a particularly tight week which saw multiple trips of units at three power stations resulting in a loss of 3,5GW.

Last week, Eskom said an earth fault at the high voltage yard at Tutuka power station had resulted in three units of the Majuba power station and two units at Drakensberg Pumped Storage being offline.

At a separate and unrelated incident, Tutuka unit 3 also tripped last week.

“No load shedding was implemented due to the increased resilience that Eskom has built into the power system over the past eight months,” it said.

Weekend opportunity maintenance (when demand for electricity is lower) will be maximised to ensure plant reliability and sustainability. — SAnews