The Western Cape Premier has expressed his concerns over ongoing delays in refurbishments at the Koeberg Nuclear Power Plant in Cape Town.
Also read: Koeberg remains SA’s best electricity option – Eskom
While the facility was scheduled for decommissioning in July 2024, its lifespan was instead extended to help mitigate the effects of loadshedding. However, the work is running critically behind schedule.
As per a statement by the Western Cape Government (WCG), Unit One was supposed to return to service this month. Instead, it may only be operational again in September or October later this year.
Premier Alan Winde says this is deeply concerning for all residents of the Western Cape.
‘I note remarks made by the Minister of Electricity, Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, this week where he too expressed his concern. In light of his remarks, I believe that it is fair to ask that the minister do all he can to establish what exactly is holding up the process; what is required to expedite the work and (. . .) take South Africans into his confidence and give an honest account of what has caused these worrying delays.’
‘More importantly, we need to know what steps are being taken to protect our energy supply due to these delays.’
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Minister Ramokgopa met with Premier Winde in Cape Town shortly after his appointment in March. He warned of a 45-day delay in bringing Koeberg’s Unit One back into service.
‘I raised this issue with the minister then already and it appears that since then the situation has only worsened,’ says Winde.
Once the work on Unit One has been completed, Unit Two will have to be taken offline for up to nine months so that steam generators can be replaced. As per the statement, this will likely lead to further power outages over the next two years.
Each unit generates 920MW.
‘If both units are out of service at the same time, blackouts will intensify significantly. The Western Cape is in an especially precarious predicament, and it would be disastrous for our residents ad our economy. I will be discussing these delays and the steps we as the WCG would like to see taken by Eskom at our Energy Council next week. I appeal to Minister Ramokgopa to prioritise the Koeberg project. My energy team and I stand ready to help the minister wherever we can.’
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In March this year, Eskom released an update on Koeberg’s steam generator replacement. The update stated that the first steam generator has been removed from Unit One’s containment building and placed in the storage building that was erected to house the equipment. The power utility lauded the feat as a significant accomplishment for the Koeberg team, the contractor and the subcontractors involved in the project.
However, as of March, Eskom has not released a statement on the following work that still needs to be completed:
- Rigging the remaining two steam generators out from their positions inside containment;
- Rigging the three new steam generators into their exact position inside the containment building;
- Performing the six critical welds (two per steam generator) that join the steam generators to the primary system piping;
- Perform radiography on the welds to ensure they meet the code requirements;
- Re-installing all the access platforms that enable people to work all the way up the steam generators (seven stories of permanent structures and temporary scaffolding);
- Reinstall all the other piping connections (steam pipe at the top, feedwater pipe, and all the other smaller sampling and instrumentation connections) once access is available. In all cases performing the required level of quality control;
- Install new thermal insulation over the whole steam generator surface and all the pipes that were worked on (around 120 tons were removed); and
- Remove all the temporary equipment that was required to be installed to allow the work to be done safely (scaffolding (85 tonnes), lead shielding (70 tonnes), electrical supplies (22 distribution boards and one kilometre of cabling), etc).
Also read:
Eskom hopes return of Koeberg unit will help ease load shedding
Picture: Eskom