100-day countdown to Medupi’s Dec 24 synchronisation
State-owned power utility Eskom starts its 100-day countdown for the first power from the first 794 MW Medupi power station unit on Monday September 15, with Unit 6 scheduled to be synchronised at midday on December 24.
Synchronisation is the process whereby the generator in the unit is electrically connected to the power grid. It will take several months for the unit to ramp up to full and stable power. The other five units will be introduced in intervals to raise the coal-fired power station’s eventual nameplate to 4 764 MW.
The project, which is being built near Lephalale, in Limpopo, is the first power station that Eskom has built in 20 years. It is also well behind schedule and over budget, owing to a combination of labour strife, problems with boiler welds and the control and instrumentation system.
Power from the project was originally expected to be introduced from 2011, but following initial delays the schedule was first extended to the end of 2013 and then to the “second half of 2014”.
After the main boiler, turbine and civil contracts had been placed by late 2008, Medupi’s cost was estimated at R87-billion. That figure was later revised to R91.2-billion in June 2012 and then to R105-billion last year.
The Medupi project forms part of a larger R300-billion build programme that the utility expects to complete in 2019/20.
The build programme will add more than 17 000 MW of capacity and comprises the 4 800 MW Kusile coal power station, being developed near Emalahleni, in Mpumalanga, and the 1 332 MW Ingula pumped storage scheme in the Drakensberg mountain range.
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