Electricitiy + Control February 2015

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At about this time of the year we need to look
for the positive signs.
This is one: All across the globe, and in
particular in developed economies, youngsters
are steering clear of career choices that involve
maths and science. In fact, it is in many of the
economies built up by an absolute commitment
to developing maths and science skills over the
past decades that there seems to be evidence
of this trend.
Why is this happening? One of the reasons
seems to be that maths and science are being
actively promoted as tough subjects. This is
not a view expressed by parents alone – it also
seems to be a view expressed by teachers and
career guidance advisors.
Look, maths and science are not trivial – but
they are most certainly not hard! It all depends
on the teacher – in my humble opinion. But,
South Africa seems to be bucking that trend.
I am not suggesting that we have excellent
maths and science education. In fact, all the
evidence I can find suggests that our maths
and science education is completely pathetic.
However, the interest is there. I have made
this point before: we need to capitalise on the
interest being shown by our youth in these two
‘hard’ subjects. If we can get that right, then we
will slowly but surely rise to the top of the pile.
Here is another bit of good news. It seems
that there is a realisation that the decision to
run open cycle gas turbines the way we have
been doing needs urgent review.
There is a trade-off between keeping the lights
on, at the expense of being able to maintain
a system, and actually damaging that system
significantly.
It alsoseems that there is agrowingsensewithin
Eskom that maintenance is actually something
that has to be taken exceptionally seriously – no
matter how bad the inconvenience. The trick is
to ensure that we are transparent about what
is happening, and why it is happening.
I will bet that this year we start making the right
choices – as it is becoming quite clear that no
new capacity (including an urgent nuclear build)
is coming on line any time soon.
Let me conclude this comment by making
what is probably an obvious observation. I
think, however, that it has been lost, possibly
because much of the comment around Eskom
has been less than well informed.
The challenge we face as a nation, and indeed
as a sub-continental region, is not when
Medupi and Kusile produce energy – or how,
exactly we will be able to absorb that energy
(or fractions of it) onto the grid: We know that
by 2030 it is predicted that we will need to
have around 90 000 MW available on the grid.
Simplistically, this suggests more than doubling
the current generating capacity over the next
15 years – or building over 54 000 MW of
capacity.
That is not the problem. The problem is that it
is likely that we will need to replace the vast
majority of our current plant by then. This
implies that what we need to be speaking
about, in fact, is how we are going to build
90 000MWof capacity over the next five years.
From 2007 to now, remember, we have not
been able to get one turbine at Medupi to
deliver energy. But, of course, that has only
been seven years.
Ian Jandrell
Pr Eng,
BSc (Eng) GDE PhD,
FSAIEE SMIEEE
COMMENT
1 February ‘15 Electricity+Control