Eskom holds off shutting down Koeberg to stabilise grid

It has delayed the start of the outage of Unit 1 of the Koeberg Nuclear Power Station in the Western Cape to allow time to stabilise the system and the recovery of some generation capacity, Eskom has announced.

The decision was taken after “careful assessment” of the current state of the national grid, the ailing parastatal said.

Koeberg Unit 1

Koeberg Unit 1 has been online for 407 days since the last outage, Eskom said.

“The Koeberg Unit 1 refuelling and maintenance outage is therefore planned to now commence on Saturday 10 December 2022, should the grid conditions have recovered to ensure stability of the system.”

Outage

While Eskom is ready to commence with the outage, grid stability is an important consideration prior to shutting down the Unit 1 reactor to commence the maintenance and refuelling outage, Sadika Touffie, acting chief nuclear officer, said.

“This is going to be a long but necessary outage – the first of its kind for Koeberg. Eskom has taken care to ensure no undue delays are experienced once the project gets under way.”

“The outage will be for approximately six months. The extended unavailability of the unit due to the planned long outages does mean the electricity supply system may be under additional strain during the outage,” he said.

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Maintenance

This will be the 26th refuelling outage on Unit 1 since commissioning and will also see the replacement of the unit’s three steam generators as part of the long-term operation program of the power station, Eskom said.

“Koeberg Nuclear Power Station is an important part of the Eskom generating fleet due to its reliable operation, low primary energy costs, strategic location in the Western Cape to stabilise the national electricity grid and the fact that it is a clean source of energy.”

The Koeberg units, at 920MW each, are the largest generating units on the African continent, Eskom said.

“Their safe and reliable operation is a significant contributor to meeting the country’s electricity demand. The Koeberg outages are planned at times of the year when the impact on the overall electricity supply is minimised as far as possible,” Eskom said.

Eskom’s first battery energy storage project

Meanwhile, Eskom and Hyosung Heavy Industries, one of the appointed service providers for the Eskom Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) project, marked the beginning of construction of the first energy storage facility under Eskom’s flagship BESS project.

The sod-turning ceremony was held at the Elandskop BESS site, located within Msunduzi and Impendle local municipalities in KwaZulu-Natal on Wednesday.

Construction will take between seven and twelve months and the batteries on the site will be charged from the main grid via Eskom’s Elandskop substation.

Generation

The facility will have a capacity of 8MW, equivalent to 32MWh of distributed electricity, enough to power a town such as Howick for four hours.

Among the notable benefits of the BESS is that it will boost the network during peak hours, thereby reducing the strain on the network during peak hours, Eskom CEO André de Ruyter said.

“The beginning of the construction of the Elandskop BESS is a positive development in our efforts to alleviate the pressure on the national electricity grid.

“This is a direct response to the urgent need to address South Africa’s long-running electricity crisis by adding more generation capacity to the grid, and also to strengthen the grid by adding more storage and transforming capacity,” he said.

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Cost

The cost of the project will be approximately R11 billion, which is being funded through concessional loans from the World Bank, African Development Bank and the New Development Bank.

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