State-owned power utility Eskom revealed on Tuesday that the second unit of its Medupi coal-fired power station, in Limpopo was loaded to full capacity over the weekend and generated 796 MW of electricity.

Eskom interim CE Matshela Koko said that this was Medupi’s most “significant achievement” since its successful synchronisation on September 8 and indicated that Unit 5 was getting closer to reaching commercial operation.
 
He said that the full load demonstrated the plant’s ability to meet design output after commissioning of all major plant [equipment] and the integration of this plant through the unit control system.
  
“We are pleased with this significant milestone and believe that power from this unit will go a long way in strengthening the power supply to the country. We commend the project team for their hard work and level of commitment in delivering the project and this achievement confirms our quest to ease the pressure on the national power grid,” Koko enthused.
 
Medupi Unit 5 is being progressively commissioned and optimised to ensure that the power it delivers is stable, consistent and reliable. Koko elaborated that during this final optimisation and testing phase, the unit was not expected to stay on load for long periods of time and would deliver power intermittently.

Medupi is a green field, coal-fired, dry-cooled, base load power station comprising of six units rated at 4 800 MW od installed capacity. Once completed, the power station will be the fourth largest coal-fired plant and the largest dry-cooled power station worldwide.
 
“Unit 5 will progressively be tested and fine-tuned further until the project team is satisfied that the systems are fully operable and reliable for final handover. This is also to ensure that the unit is safe to operate and will perform exactly as designed for the next 50 years,” Koko concluded.