Issue 116 • 15 June 2007

South Africa banks on coal and nuclear

South Africa is turning to its big twin guns of coal and nuclear to stop southern Africa being ravaged by power cuts in the next decade, writes our Cape Town Correspondent.

State-owned power utility Eskom has finally given the go-ahead to the $9.3bn, 4,200MW Medupi coal-fired power station and, more controversially, to a second nuclear power plant with a potential generating capacity of up to 4,000MW and an expected price tag of over $10bn.

Environmentalists may be up in arms over the two developments, but SA needs to race to keep up with burgeoning local and regional power demand. The continent’s biggest economy was hit by more power cuts in May as Eskom failed to match a demand surge caused by a severe cold snap and operational setbacks at the twin-reactor, 1,800MW Koeberg power plant outside Cape Town. South African demand hit a record of 34,361MW on the morning of 24 May, coming perilously close to Eskom’s total available generating capacity of 36,398MW, based on 24 coal, gas, hydro, pump storage and nuclear power plants.

Eskom had to halt supply to BHP Billiton’s alumina plants in Mozambique and SA to keep businesses and homes in Johannesburg going. With the winter stretching to August, Eskom supply managers will have their work cut out to avoid national load shedding.

New units

To tackle these problems, Eskom has finally secured formal go-ahead to develop the Medupi power station in Lephalale (formerly Ellisras) in Limpopo province (AE 114/9). Medupi – the first new coal-fired power station in decades – is scheduled to go into operation in 2011-12.

Medupi will be a baseload station based on six generating units, to be built adjoining Eskom’s existing 3,990MW Matimba plant in Lephalale.

Coal will be supplied by Exxaro Resources from its nearby Grootegeluk colliery.

Eskom already operates 13 coal stations with a capacity of 34,200MW, making it the world’s largest coal burner, consuming more than 112m t/yr. Medupi will burn around 15m t/yr when all six units are in operation.

Nuclear options

Eskom’s other weapon against looming power shortages is a second nuclear power plant, the next step in developing up to 20,000MW of nuclear generating capacity.

French, US, Russian or South Korean technology partners are being consulted for the plant, which could see start-up in 2016.

Public hearings started in early June into the planned second facility – only the second commercial nuclear plant in Africa. The hearings are part of the process to decide the location of the second nuclear plant. Eskom has identified Bantamsklip and Duynefontein in Western Cape province, Brazil and Schulpfontein in the Northern Cape and Thyspunt in Eastern Cape as potential sites.

Public resistance is expected to be stiff, especially in light of regular operational setbacks at the existing Koeberg facility. In the latest of a series of problems at Koeberg, a water cooling unit developed a leak which resulted in the protection system shutting down the generator on 31 May. Koeberg’s reactor has not been affected by the shutdown.

The National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) has been critical of Eskom’s handling of Koeberg following six outages between November 2005 and February 2006. A Nersa report last August found that “due to inadequate maintenance procedures; remedial and/or corrective action; and operating risks assessment processes, Eskom was negligent and that licence conditions were breached”.

Eskom defended its operations, saying that it accepted that there were shortcomings in the Western Cape, but it did not accept that these amounted to a breach of licence conditions or negligence. “Every technical fault does not amount to a breach of a licence condition or negligence,” the company said.

Meanwhile SA remains hopeful that its innovative pebble bed modular reactor (PBMR) project can be commercialised as part of expanding the role of nuclear in the energy mix. PBMR is a small-scale graphite moderated high temperature reactor, cooled with helium, whose heat is converted into electricity through a turbine
The project has been in the design stage for the best part of ten years but is now set to come off the drawing board (AE 103/15). The first commercial PBMR modules are planned for 2013 to supply a planned 4,000MW-5,000MW of power. This would come from 20-30 reactors of about 165MW each.

Eskom expansion

The Medupi power station and second nuclear plant form part of Eskom’s $21bn investment programme over the next five years to boost generating capacity.

This includes the Ingula Power Station, a hydro pumped storage scheme on the escarpment between Free State and KwaZulu-Natal in the Ladysmith area, with a generating capacity of 1,330MW. This will be a peaking station to be used primarily during the morning and evening periods of highest demand.

The Ankerlig and Gourikwa power stations in Western Cape are liquid fuel open cycle gas turbine stations and will add another 1,050MW of capacity.

Eskom is also bringing back into service three mothballed coal-fired power stations at Camden, Grootvlei, and Komatin that will provide another 3,600MW of capacity when fully operational (AE 102/16).

Eskom is also heavily promoting energy savings as a way to counter potential electricity shortfalls in the coming years. The National Accelerated Demand Side Management energy saving programme aims to cut demand by 3,000MW by 2012 and a further 5,000MW by 2025.

“One of the main contributions to keeping the national electricity system stable consists of the whole nation collectively using electricity much more sparingly, specifically during peak periods,” Eskom’s new chief executive Jacob Maroga told reporters in Johannesburg on 3 June: “We have only so much generating capacity; therefore the only solution is to reduce the demand.”

Eskom supplies 95% of South Africa’s electricity and approximately 50% of the total electricity consumed on the African continent, selling directly to some 6,000 industrial, 18,000 commercial, 70,000 agricultural and more than 3m residential customers.