Eskom Starts to Decommission Ageing Coal Fired Power Stations

• Eskom has decommissioned three of its ten 200Mw units at their Hendrina Power Station.
• The remaining units were expected to be shut down between June 2018 and November 2022.
• “Eskom has a human resources plan for the redeployment of the affected staff and is in discussion with relevant stakeholders,” Eskom said.

Eskom has begun shutting down its old power stations, with the closure of three units at the Hendrina power station near Middelburg in Mpumalanga.

Eskom confirmed that three of Hendrina’s units had already been decommissioned. The remaining units were expected to be shut down between June 2018 and November 2022. It did not specify the dates for the shutdown of each of the remaining 7 X 200 MW units.

Hendrina Power Station came into operation between June 1970 and December 1976. The station contains ten AEG Kanis 200MW units with a total installed capacity on 2,000MW.

“Eskom has a human resources plan for the redeployment of the affected staff and is in discussion with relevant stakeholders,” Eskom said.

In July 2018, the then newly appointed Minster of Energy, Mr Jeff Radebe, told parliament that Eskom’s planned decommissioning of the Hendrina, Arnot, Camden, Grootvlei  and Komati coal-fired power stations had already been projected in the Integrated Resource Plan 2010, which indicated that the decommissioned capacity would be replaced by about 8 800 MW of new coal-fired power generation capacity through Kusile and Medupi”.

“Eskom’s policy on the decommissioning of its fleet is informed by an optimal balance of cost efficiencies, reduced capacity and carbon emission considerations,” he explained.

Author: Bryan Groenendaal