State-owned power utility Eskom on Thursday said it was heading for a major project milestone at Medupi, in Limpopo, as the parastatal started the blow-through on the Unit 6 boiler warm-up lines last week.
The cleaning of the system lines to remove any foreign matter in the equipment and pipelines was required before the start-up of any unit.
Unit 6 was scheduled to be the first unit of the Medupi power station scheduled to be synchronised to the grid at the end of the year, with subsequent units scheduled to come on stream at nine-monthly intervals thereafter.
All efforts are directed towards the “chemical clean milestone” planned for the week ending July 18, the utility said in a statement.
The first coal firing and coal burner commissioning would follow on September 15.
Medupi’s eastern seasonal-coal stockyard and the strategic stockyard were currently receiving coal.
Eskom said progress had also been made on the construction work at the ash plant, which was 50% complete, as well as the electrical cable pulling, which was 92% complete.
The feed-water pump welding was completed, with welding test planned this week.
Further, Phase 1 of the water treatment plant had been tested and a 24-hour operation commissioned on Tuesday to produce demineralised water for steam production.