Eskom hydro power plant delayed

Johannesburg - South African utility Eskom's Ingula hydro power plant will be delayed by three months with the first unit of the 1 332 MW plant expected to be commissioned by January 2013, an official said on Tuesday.

Eskom's Corporate Specialist for Hydro Frans Louwinger said the other three units will be commissioned in April, July and October that same year.

"There has been a three-months delay ... If you deal with underground excavations, it always takes longer than you initially thought and the placing of the contract took longer than anticipated," Louwinger told Reuters on the sidelines of a hydro power conference.

The hydro plant is expected to increase capacity during peak times when electricity demand is at its highest.

The cost of the project, estimated at about R17bn, will remain unchanged despite significant rises in the cost of Eskom's other projects, Louwinger said.

Eskom has been battling to keep the lights on in Africa's biggest economy and has been forced to ration electricity since January last year when the national grid nearly collapsed, forcing mines and smelters to shut for days.

Besides two 4 800 MW coal-fired power plants in the pipeline, Ingula is one of the biggest projects planned by the utility as part of its R385bn expansion plan to add capacity to its strained grid and meet rising demand.

Eskom delayed some of the projects due to rising costs and its inability to raise cash owing in tight credit markets on the back of the global financial crisis, but said that Ingula and the two coal-fired plants would remain on track.

- Reuters