- South Africa’s state owned energy utility, Eskom, is pleased to announce the successful addition of Kusile Coal Power Station’s final unit, Unit 6, to the national grid.
- This achievement marks a crucial step toward completing one of South Africa’s largest infrastructure projects and is a key milestone in Eskom’s strategic objective of adding 2 500MW of new capacity to the grid by March 2025.
- Kusile as well as its sister new build project, Medupi, have been plagued by poor design and massive cost overruns and commissioning deadline delays. Read more
- Major incidents at Kusile include a fire delaying the commissioning of unit 5 for over 12 months and a decoupling of Unit 1’s flue gas duct in November 2022 allowing the coal fired power plant to spew pure carbon emissions for until repairs were completed last month.
- Eskom is the largest emitter of health-harming SO₂ globally. Read more
Kusile Power Station will contribute a total of 4 800MW to the national grid once all units are fully operational, making it South Africa’s largest infrastructure project. Medupi, will see its Unit 4 return 800MW by the end of April 2025 from an extended outage following a generator stator failure and the completion of the project. Both South Africa’s new build power station projects will then be essentially completed once Kusile Unit 6 is in commercial operation.
Final cost unknown
In terms of budget, Medupi and Kusile had an initial budget of R79 billion and R81 billion, respectively. In 2020, the Eskom board approved budget revisions to complete the power stations, giving R145 billion for Medupi and R161. 4 billion for Kusile’s build.
In 2022, it was reported that an additional R33 billion was needed to complete commissioning and remedial work at Kusile and Medupi. Read more
The latest numbers on cost to build are unknown.
Unit 1 flue gas duct coupler to the chimney stack disconnected. Image credit: Karin Morrow – Twitter
Kusile is the first power station in South Africa and Africa to implement Wet Flue Gas Desulphurisation (WFGD) technology, ensuring compliance with air quality standards and aligning with global best practices to reduce sulphur dioxide emissions.
“Eskom is at a critical point returning megawatts to the grid as we are currently in a constrained state. This milestone is a testament to the unwavering dedication and resilience of Eskom’s employees and contractors. Their commitment has driven us forward despite numerous challenges. As we celebrate this progress, our focus is now on ensuring that Unit 6 achieves commercial operation in the second half of 2025, further strengthening South Africa’s energy security,” said Eskom Group Executive for Generation, Bheki Nxumalo.
“Kusile Unit 6’s addition is proof that we are making continued progress in stabilising and strengthening South Africa’s electricity supply. Meeting the targets we set in the Generation Recovery Plan and our strategic roadmap underscores our determination to deliver new capacity, enhance generation performance, support economic growth, and ultimately deliver a more sustainable energy future. We reiterate our commitment to ensuring that South Africa is in no way returning to the levels of loadshedding that we experienced in 2023 and, our focus remains on delivering a more reliable, resilient, and sustainable power system for the country.” said Eskom Group Chief Executive, Dan Marokane.
Over the next six months, the unit will undergo extensive testing and optimisation before reaching commercial operation, when its 800MW capacity will be officially added to the Eskom generation fleet.
Author: Bryan Groenendaal
