SA power generation plans

SOUTH Africa expects its next nuclear power plant to come on stream by 2019 to ease strained energy supply, which led to a near-collapse of the national grid early last year and cost Africa’s biggest economy billions of dollars.

Apart from the government-led nuclear plan, state-owned utility Eskom, which provides 95 per cent of the country’s electricity, has said it will spend a total of R343 billion over five years to boost supply.
Below are details of Eskom’s generating capacity and planned expansion projects.

CAPACITY AND
SHORTFALL

* Eskom has a total maximum net generating capacity of 38 744 MW.
* It operates 11 coal-fired stations, Africa’s only nuclear-powered plant at Koeberg near Cape Town and smaller gas/liquid fuel turbine stations, hydroelectric and pumped storage schemes.
* The utility, established in 1923, generates 95 per cent of South Africa’s electricity and says it generates 45 per cent of Africa’s electricity.
* In January 2008, the utility cut electricity to the country’s mines after the gap between supply and demand fell to an unprecedented 4 000 MW, threatening the country’s entire electricity network.
* Eskom plans to invest R343 billion in power generation and infrastructure over the next five years. It plans to spend R1,3 trillion on the expansion by 2025 to more than double generating capacity to 80 000 MW.
* Eskom says if the South African economy grows at the government target of 6 per cent, it implies an additional demand of 1 600 MW per year on the grid.

PLANNED POWER
STATIONS

* Construction started in May 2007 on the Medupi power station which will be able to deliver 4 788 MW when the last unit is commissioned in 2015. The first unit should be commissioned by 2012. It is South Africa’s first new power station in more than a decade.
* Work has also begun on the Ingula pumped storage scheme that will be able to supply 1 332 MW. Eskom plans to have the power station fully operational by mid-2013.
* Eskom invited bids from France’s Areva and US-based Westinghouse Electric to build a new nuclear power plant, but gave up the project in December 2008 due to financial constraints. The government took over the nuclear programme and has its own plans, with a first 3 200 MW plant in 2019, two years later than initially projected by Eskom.
* The government budgets for up to 6 000 megawatts of new nuclear energy by 2025, down from ambitious plans by Eskom to have 20 000 MW from nuclear by that time.
– Nampa-Reuters