Eskom In South Africa Research Articles

Understanding SOE responses to the energy crisis in Nigeria and South Africa

This aim of this paper is to present an understanding State-Owned Entities (SOE’s) responses to the energy crisis in Nigeria and South Africa. The energy crisis in both Nigeria and South Africa has posed significant challenges, with both countries experiencing severe power shortages that have impacted economic growth and the quality of life. State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) in the energy sector, such as Nigeria's NESCO and South Africa's Eskom, have traditionally been central to efforts of ensuring energy security. The paper therefore through a qualitative method of research, attempts to reveal the responses of the SOE’s in these states to address the energy crisis. Hence, it concludes that South Africa responded by unbundling Eskom and Nigeria privatising the energy sector. But these mechanisms are yet to solve the energy crisis.

Policy implications of the World Bank utility staffing analysis in South Africa

In 2016, the World Bank released Working Paper No. 7788, “Financial Viability of Electricity Sectors in Sub-Saharan Africa: Quasi-Fiscal Deficits and Hidden Costs”. The paper concluded that virtually all Sub-Saharan electricity utilities were overstaffed and that Eskom in South Africa had the highest levels of overstaffing. This analysis reveals apparent problems in the Bank's overstaffing study and highlights the impact of the study on staffing decisions and electricity tariffs in South Africa due to perceptions of staffing inefficiency in Eskom's operations. The potential policy implications for utilities in developing countries are discussed.

Impact of corporate social responsibility on employee engagement: A case of Eskom in South Africa.

The emergence of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as a business management concept in the fifties ushered in a new error in the way business view its various stakeholders. Chief among the stakeholders are the employees by virtue of being the brains behind the organization. This study assesses the impact of CSR programmes on Employee Engagement (EE) in the South African State Owned Power Company, Eskom. In particular, the study interrogates the impact of the three CSR dimensions of awareness, involvement and environmental awareness vis-a-vis the two dimensions of EE, namely, Job Engagement (JE) and Organizational Engagement (OE). A total of 380 Eskom employees were used as participants. The major findings were that organizational leaders are eager to implement CSR strategies. The study further revealed realistic and practical practises to broaden understanding of the current status of the organization, understanding EE and understanding the role CSR could play as a potential Human Resources (HR) tool to engage employees for Eskom and other organizations in general. The study concludes by recommending further research across industries to address the relationship between CSR initiatives and EE.

Prototype Monitoring System for Power Line Inspection by Means of a PandaBoard

The national energy supplier (Eskom in South Africa) supplies electricity through thousands-of-kilometers of overhead power lines. The current methods of inspection of these overhead power lines are infrequent and expensive. In this paper, the authors present the development of a prototype monitoring system for power line inspection in South Africa. The developed prototype monitoring system collects data (information) from the overhead power lines, is remotely accessible and fits into a power line robot. The prototype monitoring system makes use of a PandaBoard ® (SBC) with GPS receiver and 5 MP camera to collect data. Hardware fatigue is the biggest problem faced on the overhead power lines and is captured by means of the 5 MP camera and is displayed on a website hosted by the PandaBoard ® via Wi-Fi. The monitoring system has low power consumption, is light weight, compact and easily collects data. The data obtained from the prototype monitoring system was satisfactory and provides an improved solution for monitoring power lines for Eskom in South Africa.

Power station pump selection: part 2

In this second of a two-part series, Willem van der Westhuizen and Tony Cattaert of South Africa's Eskom discuss the selection of the optimized pump configuration and drive option for the boiler feed pumps to be installed at the utility's newest power stations. These pumps are amongst the highest consumers of auxiliary electrical power within a power plant.

Wild Blue Yonder

This paper focuses on research and innovation in the gas turbine industry. The production of nonaviation gas turbines was $3.6 billion in 1990, only 15% of total production. With improvement in thermal efficiency, increases in unit size, and the building of record breaking combined-cycle electric power plants fueled by cheap natural gas, nonaviation production zoomed to a euphoric high of $25.8 billion in 2001. The US Department of Energy announced last year the award of $130 million for 10 new projects to integrate hydrogen-burning gas turbines and turbine subsystems into integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) central power stations. Nuclear generation is also a zero-emissions technology, and Pebble Bed Modular Reactor Ltd, a South African company, is developing a gas turbine-nuclear reactor electric power plant, with participating companies that include Westinghouse, MHI of Japan, Nukem of Germany, and South Africa's Eskom.

Available water for hydropower generation in Swaziland

A study of available water for hydropower generation was carried out in Swaziland as part of the national water study commissioned by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA). The study was carried out in 2004/05 and it involved field assessment of major hydropower stations, hydrological assessment of the major water courses where hydropower generation plants are located, climatic changes over the last 10 years and an assessment of the demand for electricity in Swaziland. The study showed that more than 90% of the electricity which Swaziland Electricity Board (SEB) provides to its customers is produced by hydropower while a small proportion is produced by diesel power. The study also showed that the capacity of SEB to generate hydropower is limited mainly by low water flows. It was found out that due to limited capacity to generate hydropower, SEB imports most of the electricity from ESKOM in South Africa and that in 2004 the imported power was more that 84% of the total electricity consumed in Swaziland. It was found out that the causes of low water flows were upstream abstractions and long-term drought conditions. This indicated that hydropower generation is now less favourable in Swaziland than it was in the 1970s, when the existing schemes were built or studied. The other cause for reduced availability of water for hydropower generation is deforestation and increasing land use pressure in the catchment leading to high sedimentation levels in reservoirs. It was concluded that, while the future of locally generated hydropower is limited by dwindling water flows, the capacity to generate more power can be increased by constructing additional dams. It was also recommended that deforestation and intensive cultivation of the catchment areas need to be controlled to reduce the sedimentation of hydropower reservoirs and that more dams should be constructed to counteract the effects of droughts on river flows.

Relational Contracts -NEC in Perspective Philosophy and Ethos of ECC

In the UK in particular the NEC is used across the construction sector in building, civil engineering, utilities and power. Some of the major projects NEC is used on includes BAA’s Heathrow Terminal 5, Channel Tunnel Rail Link, the Eden project and the National Health Services’ Procure21 hospital building framework. Outside the UK, Eskom in South Africa is a major user. The successor, the ECC, is intended to provide an up to date method for employers, designers, contractors and project managers to work collaboratively and to achieve their own objectives for their work more consistently than other forms of contract. This should lead to a much reduced risk to the employer of cost and time overruns and of poor performance of the completed projects which should give a much increased likelihood of achieving a profit for the contractor, subcontractor and suppliers. The developments of the contracts and their state of implementation is discussed.

Rationale for restructuring and regulation of a ‘low priced’ public utility: a case study of Eskom in South Africa

Eskom in South Africa provides an interesting case study to test the prevailing orthodoxy on electricity market reform. Eskom is the seventh largest electricity utility in the world. It is a publicly owned, vertically integrated monopoly, with the cheapest prices globally. Is there any rationale for independent regulation of Eskom or for embarking on a reform of the South African electricity market?

South Africa's Eskom trials ‘solar gold’ technologies

South Africa's Eskom trials ‘solar gold’ technologies

Sensitivity Analysis of the PBMR Gas Cooled Nuclear Reactor Cycle with the Aid of a Simplified Simulation Model

System simulation is a valuable tool in the design of thermo-fluid systems like the Pebble Bed Modular Reactor nuclear power plant currently being developed for ESKOM in South Africa. A simplified and easy to use cycle simulation can be employed successfully in the conceptual design phase when parametric studies are being performed to determine the influence of important design parameters on the system performance. The advantage of such a simplified simulation is that the analyst has direct control over the performance of each component as opposed to more detailed simulations where the component performance is obtained as an output. This paper introduces the EESINET simulation model developed for this purpose. It also provides the results obtained from the sensitivity analysis including the effects of overall pressure ratio, turbo machine efficiencies, maximum and minimum cycle temperatures and pressures, recuperator effectiveness as well as pressure losses and leak flows.