Eskom has suspended several employees after an explosion at Unit 4 at the Medupi power station caused what the utility has described as “extensive damage” to the facility.
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An explosion at the Unit 4 generator at the Medupi power station in Limpopo has knocked out an adjacent unit, Eskom said on Monday. It’s not yet clear if this will lead to load shedding in the coming week.
Eskom has reached “commercial operation status” of its final generation unit at Medupi, one of the world’s largest coal-fired power stations – and likely one of the last of its size to be built.
A conveyor belt at the giant Medupi coal-fired power station snapped on Wednesday night, prompted state-owned power utility Eskom to warn on Thursday morning of a high risk of load shedding.
Police arrested two senior ex-managers at Eskom and a number of other suspects over allegations of fraud, corruption and money laundering at the Kusile power plant.
Following major problems that brought Eskom’s Medupi power station to its knees last week, Medupi manager Rudi van der Wal is leaving Eskom to take up a position overseas.
Eskom’s Medupi Unit 1 was synchronised to the grid on Tuesday evening, ahead of schedule. Unit 1 is the last unit to be synchronised to the grid at the Lephalale-based plant.
Eleven years after construction started on Eskom’s massive 4.8GW Kusile coal-fired power station in Mpumalanga, not one of its six 800MW generator units is currently delivering power into the grid.
Two new coal-fired power plants being built in South Africa are “badly designed and badly constructed”, public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan said on Tuesday.
Eskom is facing a mounting repair bill at two new coal-fired power stations that are still under construction, compounding its already dire financial situation.