When Lourence Chauke took charge at Duvha power station outside Emalahleni at the start of 2021, it was one of Eskom’s worst-performing. Two years later it hovers in the top six and the Limpopo-born general manager is aiming for the top spot in the rankings by the end of financial 2025.
In his office overlooking Duvha, Chauke, 46, introduces himself. “My name starts in Afrikaans and it ends in English,” he smiles. “When I arrived here in February 2021, Duvha was in the No 1 position in terms of performance. That is not No 1 from the top, it was No 1 from the bottom.”
While the turnaround has already started (“We now hover in the top six on the other, better end of the spectrum”) Chauke has plans to improve further.
“By the end of the 2025 financial year, I want us to be No 1. I have looked at my scheduled outages and we have decided what needs to be done.
“I have an outage for unit 1 coming in September. I know we will get back about 200MW once we have repaired unit 1. That increases our energy availability factor [EAF]. I also have a planned outage for unit 4 in this current financial year which should bring us another 80MW [after the repair].”
Next year will bring two more outages — units 5 and 6.
“That will lift our EAF to the point where we will be competing with the best on a more permanent basis.”
Duvha has five units, each of which can generate 575MW, Chauke said, “compared to for instance Grootvlei, that produces 190MW per unit. Two Duvha units produce more power than the entire Grootvlei station.”
Chauke, who studied mechanical engineering at the Mangosutho University of Technology in KwaZulu-Natal, quickly realised when he took the reins at Duvha that changes were needed.
“I spent my first couple of months observing and taking notes. When you arrive as the new GM you have the luxury of bringing your own team. I did the opposite, because I realised the only way was to let the employees take ownership of our station. So, I put together a team of people who were already working here who could articulate the technical challenges we faced — to help me identify areas of concern.”
Chauke was surprised by what he found.
“Almost everyone knew the technical challenges that were facing us. The question was why they were not fixing them.
“Then you realise some of the challenges are people-related. We started focusing on these and I had engagements with a lot of people, from heads of department and line managers to senior engineers. Once you have the people onboard they start challenging each other and holding one another accountable,” he said.
“In my first year I only went home some weekends. This was during Covid, so you had limited access to people. You can’t inspire an employee to change culture and follow your example if the employee can’t see you. If you came here at 10pm or 11pm you would find me here, working. For a GM there is no such thing as a 9-5. This is a 24/7 business.”
After Covid restrictions were lifted, his task became easier.
“Suddenly I could call mass meetings where we could all share our issues and plans. The plant was not running properly because the maintenance was not done the way it should be. There was a backlog of outages,” Chauke said.
“After you have upgraded a unit and you start running it again you encounter lots of control issues. You start picking up and fixing these challenges one by one. We had challenges that related to ambient temperature, like vacuum load losses. The issues were the result of failure over time.
“The radiators inside one of the towers collapsed, it was not optimally producing the cooling effects it was supposed to do. The water would enter hot and come out hot.”
Chauke said another component that required repairs was the water treatment plant.
“In two years we’ve managed to move from the bottom six to the top six. Since the start of this year we have been hovering between one and six,” he said. “At the moment we have moved down again because we had a tube leak, but once that is solved, we will move up again to somewhere between one and four. We are snapping at the heels of Matimba, Lethabo and Medupi.”
I gave our workforce a braai to celebrate. Our stakeholders also climbed in. One of them sponsored the wors and another the drinks
— Lourence Chauke
Chauke proudly relates how Duvha achieved an EAF of 81% last week when all five units ran for seven days. “I gave our workforce a braai to celebrate. Our stakeholders also climbed in. One of them sponsored the wors and another the drinks. Including service providers, we have about 2,000 people.”
He is a career Eskomite. “Eskom awarded bursaries and in 1997 in my second year I was one of five best students who were awarded one,” Chauke said.
His first full-time posting was Majuba power station, where he worked until the end of 2005.
“I was then promoted and moved to Grootvlei where I worked as an auxiliary engineer. At Grootvlei I started moving through the ranks — from line manager to technical plant manager to general manager — until I came to Duvha.”
Community interaction is central to power station success.
“In the year before I arrived Duvha had about 48 community protests at the gate. We brought the community in and identified what we can help with, but we never stopped listening.
“Let’s say they run out of water. I have a water treatment plant here, so I simply load water and send it to them. If the rain damages their roads, I talk to the service provider running our yellow fleet and they will send a grader to fix the roads. In the last year we had fewer than 10 protests at our gate.”
He said criminality was no longer rampant and Eskom staff themselves were taking responsibility for policing the facility.
“Last week someone was caught stealing cable. The change of culture meant the suspect — a security employee — was caught by his colleagues. Law enforcement is now dealing with him.
“Yes, thefts and other crimes do mostly happen from within, but the criminals are also caught from within these days. It is not undercover Hawks or SAPS members who are doing the catching, it is Eskom people.”
Chauke refers to a recent Sunday Times interview with his colleague Karabo Rakgolela, general manager of Lethabo power station near Vanderbijlpark.
“Karabo bet you a steak dinner that there will be little-to-no load-shedding by Christmas and that we will not easily go over stage 4 after that. Well, I will bet you that Duvha will be No 1 when it comes to our EAF by next year January,” he laughs.
“If we are not No 1, I will buy you a steak dinner. Even though my plan is to be No 1 by the end of the 2025 financial year, I don’t want to wait two years for that victory steak.”
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