The blaze that has put one unit at Kriel Power Station in Mpumalanga out of commission for the foreseeable future has reignited the fierce debate about the age of Eskom’s coal-fired fleet and its adequacy to deliver uninterrupted power supply.
Eskom yesterday confirmed that a preliminary investigation showed that a fire had been triggered by a broken oil pipe on Sunday afternoon, causing an oil spill on the hot surfaces of the turbine at Unit 6 at Kriel Power Station.
The power utility said the unit correctly tripped following the loss of hydraulic oil to the turbine valves, and that this had no impact on power supply.
Kriel Power Station Unit 6 contributes 475MW to the power grid. With this unit temporarily offline, total unplanned outages stand at 8 483MW—still 4 517MW below the base case for summer 2024.
Eskom said the current available generation capacity is 30 809MW, while yesterday’s peak demand was forecast at 26 364MW.
It said there were currently adequate reserves for evening peak, with an additional 720MW anticipated to return to service later in the day.
“Eskom assures South Africans that this incident will not impact the current generation capacity or lead to load shedding,” said the power utility.
“The ongoing, incremental results of the Generation Recovery Plan have continually added more of a “buffer” to the system to manage incidents such as this. The system has sufficient reserves.”
Former Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter used to emphasize how much Eskom’s ageing coal-fired power fleet was contributing to the crippling blackouts during his term, at one time characterising Eskom’s coal stations as “flogging a dead horse”.
However, Eskom is currently in talks with the government about putting in abeyance plans to decommission and repurpose Komati Power Station near Middleburg by 2030 as part of the Just Energy Transition.
Komati is one of the power stations that were previously mothballed due to the country’s excess generation capacity in the early 1980s, the age of the station and the high maintenance costs. Unit 9 was then mothballed in 1989.
The initial plan was to convert the power plant into a renewable generation site powered with 150MW of solar, 70MW of wind and 150MW of storage batteries, thereby continuing to put the site and its associated transmission infrastructure into good use and to provide economic opportunities to the community.
Energy policy and investment specialist Anton Eberhard wrote on social media X yesterday questioning the logic of extending the life of Eskom’s ageing coal-fired power fleet.
“Kriel power unit 6 caught fire last night – evidently from a burst oil pipe. I doubt it will be repaired. Kriel was commissioned in 1979 – 6 x 500MW. Eskom talks about extending the life of these old power stations but eventually they take themselves offline,” he said.
Videos of the fire damage at Kriel power station were trending on social media yesterday, drawing a number of commentary from various quarters.
“It’s a safe bet to say that the asset will have to be scrapped,” said nuclear engineer and analyst, Hügo Krüger, after seeing one of the videos taken inside the unit.
According to Eskom, the station’s fire and emergency team responded swiftly to extinguish and contain the fire.
There were no personnel injured, and all other units at the power station remain fully operational.
Eskom said the standard investigation procedure is now underway to assess the extent of the damage, as well as the time required for repairs and restoration, and it will make a further announcement when the results of this investigation are finalised.
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