Koeberg’s chief nuclear officer, Riedewaan Barkadien, has resigned to take up an executive position at a nuclear power station in Canada. Eskom said former Koeberg power station plant manager Keith Featherstone would act as chief nuclear officer from the start of August.
Eskom hopes it will be able to lift load-shedding in 10 days, but warned on Monday that there was still a risk of more rolling blackouts given the unpredictable power system.
“As soon as the situation allows, we will most definitely ensure that the load-shedding stages be reduced,” the utility’s chief operating officer, Jan Oberholzer, told journalists.
He said some of the 13 generation units that had shut down since 3 July because of defects would return over the next few days. These include five units at Eskom’s Kendal, Tutuka and Majuba power stations, which underwent emergency repairs over the weekend, causing further generation capacity losses.
In his weekly newsletter earlier on Monday, President Cyril Ramaphosa noted that the transmission line from Cahora Bassa in Mozambique had been restored, “adding 600MW to the grid, and Medupi unit six returned to service on Saturday, adding another 720MW”.
“While these actions are significant and will bear fruit over the coming months, they are clearly not enough to address the crisis that we face,” Ramaphosa wrote.
He said as part of the solution to the country’s electricity crisis, Eskom had made land available next to existing power stations for private investment in renewable energy projects.
“Design modifications have been completed to improve the performance of Medupi units one, two and three and are underway in units five and six,” the president added.
Eskom’s chief executive, André de Ruyter, told the media during the briefing that it would take at least 18 months before this energy project could contribute to generation capacity.
De Ruyter announced the return of unit two at Koeberg nuclear power station in the Western Cape, saying this would add 920 megawatts to generation capacity and bring “enhanced stability to the grid” by the end of July. Unit two has been offline since 18 January for major maintenance that was scheduled for six months.
Meanwhile, Koeberg’s chief nuclear officer, Riedewaan Barkadien, has resigned to take up an executive position at a nuclear power station in Canada. Eskom said former Koeberg power station plant manager Keith Featherstone would act as chief nuclear officer from the start of August.
Mahesh Valaitham will act as Koeberg’s general manager in the place of the current manager, Nomawethu Mtwebana, who will join the World Association of Nuclear Operators in Atlanta in the United States as a “reverse loanee” for one year before returning to South Africa.
“I wish to assure the people of South Africa and fellow guardians at Eskom that the organisation has access to a sufficiently experienced and competent executive team to continue ensuring a safe and smooth operation at Africa’s only nuclear power station,” said Oberholzer.
In his newsletter, Ramaphosa said the government would in the coming days announce a “comprehensive set of actions to achieve much faster progress in tackling load-shedding”.
“Over the past two weeks, we have been working with the relevant ministers and senior officials on a range of additional measures to accelerate all efforts to increase our electricity supply,” he said.
“The message is clear: this is no time for business as usual. We need to act boldly to make load-shedding a thing of the past.”