- Eskom says that the grid is now more stable following the return to service of Kusile Unit 1.
- Now both Kusile 1 and Kusile 3 are supplying power, with Kusile 2 expected to be turned on again in October.
- If all goes according to plan, South Africa could see an additional 3 200MW of power by the end of the year.
After nearly a year of being offline for repairs, unit 1 of the Kusile power station in Mpumalanga has been returned to service, and with it around 800MW of electricity added to the grid in efforts to stabilise loadshedding.
The unit now joins Kusile unit 3 which was returned to service at the end of September after itself being offline for 12 months following a collapse of the station’s flue-gas desulpherisation unit. Together the two units are adding 1 600MW to the grid, or electricity amounting to just over a single stage of loadshedding.
According to an update published by the utility on X, Kusile unit 1 was returned to service “a month and a half ahead of the original schedule.”
“This signifies that Eskom is on the right path to reducing and ultimately ending loadshedding,” Eskom adds. Stage 2 loadshedding is set to be implemented at 16:00 every evening this week, as of time of writing, but outages remain suspended from 05:00 until then.
With both of these Kusile units online, Eskom says it is managing to generate 94MW over the country’s demand as of Monday. This is without using diesel-guzzling open-cycle gas turbines and with a substantial 2 664MW of renewable energy bolstering the grid, mostly from wind sources.
Kusile is considered one of the largest power stations in the world, and the largest coal-fired power plant on Earth. It was commissioned in 2007, but a bloated design and construction process has kept it far shy of its full potential – six generating units worth 800MW each. Right now only two of the six are functioning.
According to Engineering News, Kusile cost the South African taxpayer R161 billion and it is only expected to be finished in 2027.
Only one of the three available units at Kusile now remains offline, Kusile unit 2. Electricity minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa said that Eskom hopes to bring all three online by the end of October. This will add around 2 400MW to the grid, effectively removing two stages of loadshedding.
With Kusile unit 5 slated to come online in December, South Africa may start 2024 loadshedding free, a stark contrast to the beginning of 2023. However, Eskom has repeatedly said that the grid remains bitterly unstable and any number of things can go wrong until then.
