Eskom, the South African power utility, has announced that it aims to reduce the recurring power shortage within the country by bringing on line a number of units into the power mainstream.
This announcement follows hot on the heels of the bringing on line of a section of the Medupi Power Station, which has been said to be contributing almost 800MW to the power grid since March in an effort to minimize load shedding. The Medupi Power Station’s construction started in May 2007 and it is said to be South Africa’s largest coal-fired power station. It will also become the world’s largest dry cooled coal-fired power station. The power station is located near Lephalale in Limpopo Province.
In a statement released by the power giant on Friday, it said that from August 2017, the first 800 megawatts of power are expected to come on line from Kusile, a coal-fired Power Station, formerly known as the Bravo power station, which is located near the existing Kendal Power Station in the Nkalanga district of Mpumalanga Province. Eskom said in the statement that the major aim was the operation at the same time with unit 3 of the Ingula Power Station, which is located within the Drakensberg range early next year. This will go a long way in achieving Africa’s most developed economy’s aims of overcoming the constant power outages which had become the order of the day.
Eskom has been dogged by a number of controversies in its quest to provide electricity to South African citizens. They have changed chief executive officers several times in the past few years, with the latest Matona being said to have received a golden handshake to part ways with the power utility amicably. Most recently, Eskom has had to deal with the fact that the power station at Medupi is built on several grave sites instead of one as originally surmised.
