President Jacob Zuma will on Friday, 20 September 2013, officially re-open the Grootvlei Power Station in Balfour, Mpumalanga, as part of the roll out of the Government’s Infrastructure Build Programme.

On the same day, the President will first inspect progress made in the construction of the Balfour Railway Line, which is intended to ferry coal to the Grootvlei Power Station in line with migrating from road to rail in the transportation of coal.

President Zuma chairs the Presidential Infrastructure Coordinating Commission which has introduced a central coordination within the Presidency of all major infrastructure projects in all three spheres of government, to ensure closer monitoring and delivery of social and economic infrastructure.

The return to service of the Grootvlei Power Station will assist with the electricity demand requirements on the National Grid by providing maintenance space for other power stations. It will also support the road to rail migration plan as well as reduce the number of heavy haulage trucks damaging the roads in Mpumalanga province.

The Grootvlei power station was built in the late 1960’s consisting of six coal fired units and has an installed capacity of 1200 megawatts. However, this station was mothballed in 1990 due to excess power at the time, and following a R7,2 billion upgrade it now has been returned to service. This is part of Eskom’s return-to-service projects which also included Camden and Komati power stations.

In line with their own commitments to migrate freight volumes to rail, Transnet has re-instated the Grootvlei – Balfour rail line which is approximately 30 kilometres in length. This rail line will be capable of initially transporting three million tons of coal per annum to the Grootvlei power station.
“We expect the first phase of the project to be completed by December this year and the second phase by April 2014. Already the development on the rail line sees 9 kilometres of track successfully installed,’’ said Public Enterprises Minister Malusi Gigaba on the rail line construction.

The Grootvlei-Balfour railway line forms part of the broader branchline network. In South Africa, branchlines total 7 000 kilometres in rail network whilst the core rail network is 12 800 kilometres in length.

Branchlines form a critical link in the overall transportation system and are an integral component of the revitalisation of the freight traffic road to rail migration strategy. This rail network will contribute to local economic and socio-economic development of communities.
The Balfour-Grootvlei line re-instatement project links the ESKOM Grootvlei Power Station to Balfour North Station in the Mpumalanga Province.

The project provides a containerised coal solution for the ESKOM Grootvlei Power Station and seeks to:
•     Reduce road transport for coal transportation
•     Reduce road infrastructure damage
•     Create environmental and economically friendly logistics solutions
•     Assist in promoting safety for road users.
In total over 200 jobs would have been created over the railway project’s lifespan.
The Eskom power station project has seen 3 800 people employed during peak operations.