Eskom gets more power from Medupi

Cape Town - Medupi's Unit 5 is closer to commercial operation, which means that it is on its way to being able to supply power to the national grid during peak times, Eskom said in a statement on Tuesday.  

“We are pleased with this significant milestone and believe that power from this unit will go a long way in strengthening the power supply to the country," said Eskom’s interim chief executive Matshela Koko.

Unit 5, which was successful synchronised in September, was loaded to full load with 796MW of power generated on Saturday.  

Full load demonstrates the plant's ability to meet design output after commissioning of all major plant and the integration of this plant via the unit control system, Eskom explained.  

"We commend the Project Team for their hard work and level of commitment in delivering the project and this achievement confirms our quest to ease the pressure on the national power grid," said Koko.

The Unit will now be progressively tested and fine-tuned further until the project is satisfied that the systems are fully operable and reliable for final handover.

"This is also to ensure that the unit is safe to operate, and will perform exactly as designed for the next 50 years."

Eskom added that that Unit 5 is not expected to stay on load for long periods of time and will deliver power intermittently during its final optimisation and testing phase.

Medupi is a green field coal-fired dry-cooled base load station comprising of six units rated at 4800MW installed capacity.

Once completed, the power station will be the fourth largest coal-fired plant and the largest dry-cooled power station in the world.