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Power utility prepares for Medupi integration

MEDUPI POWER STATION At full capacity the station will add 4 800 MW to the national grid

Photo by Pimani Baloyi

TEAM MEDUPI Medupi power station project director Roman Crookes taking Parliament portfolio committee on Public Enterprise chairperson Dipuo Letsatsi-Duba and portfolio committee on Energy chairperson Fikile Majola on a tour of the plant

Photo by Pimani Baloyi

12th December 2014

By: Pimani Baloyi

Creamer Media Writer

  

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State-owned power utility Eskom says it is in the process of building two 400 kV transmission lines between the Spitskop substation and the Dinaledi substation, both in the greater Brits area, in the North West, to enable the integration of the first unit of the Medupi power station, in Lephalale, Limpopo, scheduled for synchronisation this month.

The lines will cross over the 88 kV Letlhabile-Veekraal line and the 88 kV Letlhabile-Brits Industries distribution line to form part of the network strengthening required to enable the integration of Medupi.

According to Eskom, Unit 6 of the Medupi power station is ready for synchronisation. Using liquefied petroleum gas and fuel oil, the first oil fire in Unit 6 was ignited in October. “This meant that all the systems of gas and oil had to be available and fully commissioned,” stated Eskom.

Unit 6 is scheduled to start contributing full power to the national grid six months after synchronisation.

Committees Happy with Progress
Parliament’s portfolio committees on Public Enterprise and Energy are satisfied with the progress made at Medupi.

Committee members assessed the progress made on the completion of Unit 6 during an oversight visit to the station in October.

Portfolio Committee on Public Enterprises chairperson Dipuo Letsatsi-Duba told Engineering News that the visit helped the members to understand the full scale of the project. She added that the committees were mostly impressed by the fact that 95% of the workforce and service providers are South African.

“Seeing work happening on the plant, I fully appreciate the challenges that Eskom has been facing in constructing the station . . . challenges of labour unrest and price escalations . . . because any project of this magnitude is bound to face several challenges along the way,” she explained.

Letsatsi-Duba added that, prior to the visit, she was concerned that, owing to the nature of the construction process – which would require fewer personnel as construction progressed – a number of jobs would be lost, but her fears were dispelled when project director Roman Crookes presented the contingency plan of Medupi’s skills development and retention programmes to committee members.

“It was highlighted to us that, since the project started, the training programmes have resulted in several people qualifying as boilermakers, generator manufacturers and large-scale project managers, in addition to many of the skills sets the country desperately needs.

“These scarce skills can be used in other infrastructure development projects. We have advised Medupi to get longer-term contracts for some of the specially skilled employees to ensure that they are not poached by other companies outside the country,” Letsatsi-Duba stated.

Meeting Deadlines
Crookes also told Engineering News during the visit that, although construction and other work still had to be completed, the Medupi team was committed to ensuring that the first of six units will start the process of synchronisation this month.

The coal-fired power station is scheduled for full commissioning in 2019 and will have an ultimate capacity of 4 764 MW. Crookes explained that most of the challenges that the project currently faced related to construction and commissioning.

“It would be misleading to say that it is easy. There is a significant amount of work that still needs to be done, but we have a dedicated team of Medupi employees and contractors who is working around the clock,” he stated, adding that this was done to ensure that the synchronisation of Unit 6 by year-end was given the greatest chances of success.

Crookes added that the project was focused on meeting all its deadlines, as the team had thought of every possible scenario that might delay completion and had devised plans to quickly mitigate any challenge that might occur.

Technical Facts
The Medupi power station will comprise of six units with a gross nominal capacity of 800 MW each, resulting in a total capacity of 4 800 MW. Construction started in May 2007. The station will have supercritical boilers and turbines installed, which operate at higher temperatures and pressures than Eskom’s other stations. The baseload station will also use direct dry-cooling owing to the water scarcity in the area.

Further, the station’s boiler house will stand at about 130 m in height, with the highest point on site being the top of the chimney at 220 m. It is projected that it will directly grow South Africa’s gross domestic product by about 0.35% per year. In addition, about 40% of the project cost is expected to be spent locally.

The station is being built backwards, from Unit 6 to Unit 1. Eskom states that this approach is the result of the rock conglomeration on the southern side, which is excavated and reused as the engineering fill on the northern side.

Edited by Megan van Wyngaardt
Creamer Media Contributing Editor Online

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