Unit 2 of the Koeberg nuclear power station on October 21 successfully completed its twenty-fourth outage since it first started to generate electricity.
The unit is synchronised onto the electricity grid and will load up to full capacity by next week, power utility Eskom reports.
During the planned outage, which began on August 11, the nuclear fuel in the reactor core was replaced with new fuel. All the nuclear fuel is removed from the core during a refuelling outage, the reactor cavity drained and cleaned, then refilled before the fuel is placed into the core.
Routine maintenance was also performed on the plant to keep the station performing safely and optimally.
Koeberg staff performed the refuelling and maintenance with the assistance of 32 international specialists.
Eskom states that the unit will provide a reliable electricity output of about 900 MW for close on 400 days, helping to ease the supply constraints on the rest of the power station fleet.
Unit 1 continues to operate as normal at full capacity and is scheduled for a refuelling and maintenance outage starting in February 2021.