With two units at Koeberg nuclear power station likely to be out of commission at the same time, Eskom will struggle to keep the lights on, said Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa.
With two units at Koeberg nuclear power station likely to be out of commission at the same time, Eskom will struggle to keep the lights on, said Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa.
Speaking at a media briefing on Monday, Ramokgopa said he was worried about progress being made on unit one, which is on a maintenance outage so that its steam generators can be replaced.
Unit two will be shut down in October for about six months for its steam generators to be replaced.
Unit one was taken down in December, and was expected to be functioning again by July. But in May, the utility pushed back the deadline by about a month-and-a-half.
And in June, during a visit to the station, Ramokgopa cautioned that the unit was behind schedule. “We were hoping that unit one will come back online by the 23rd of July, however, unfortunately they can’t meet the target because of unforeseen conditions,” he said at the time.
Now both units will be closed in September, depriving the country of almost two stages of load-shedding. Each unit at Koeberg produces 920 megawatts, which is equivalent to one stage of load-shedding.
“I’ve asked for a more detailed report, and the more we get an indication of what the issues are, the more we are getting very, very, very worried. It is something that requires urgent attention,” said Ramokgopa.
“Once we have an overlap of unit one not coming on stream and unit two having to be taken out, the net picture will be that from where we are now, we will have lost [another] 920 megawatts.”
He added that the delay in the return of both units will add pressure to the grid and further elevate load-shedding.
The steam generator replacements on both units are part of the critical maintenance required for the National Nuclear Regulator to determine whether it will be safe to extend the life of Koeberg by another 20 years, at an estimated cost of about R20 billion.
The power station’s operating licence expires in July 2024.
In April, during a parliamentary response, Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe said the decision to extend Koeberg’s life was contained in the government’s 2019 Integrated Resource Plan.
He said back then that the extension of Koeberg’s life was necessary and more nuclear power in the future should not be ruled out.
Ramokgopa said that despite the problems at Koeberg, Eskom was in a better situation this week to handle the cold snap expected this weekend.
The utility’s reservoirs, which are used to store and then release water to provide additional electricity when needed, had filled up and would help to meet demand during the weekend.
“This week we have managed to fill up the dam levels and recover our reserves,” he said.
Eskom implemented stage six load-shedding last week after generation units at three power stations broke down, a loss of an additional 3 900 megawatts, amid the cold front that hit the country and the resultant increase in demand of 3 000 megawatts.
Ramokgopa said that he believed the country was now through the worst of winter. He did not expect load-shedding to reach stages seven or eight.
Mandisa Nyathi is a climate reporting fellow, funded by the Open Society Foundation for South Africa.