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Cape Town – Medupi Power Station has been added to the controversial national key points, a list that until this year was a tightly-held state secret.
Since the state lost its court case to prevent public access to the list, it has changed its stance on the secrecy of these strategic points.
Such has been the turnaround that state-owned utility Eskom had an inauguration ceremony at the power station site on Wednesday to declare it a national key point.
The ceremony took place in a month that will be celebrated as the first anniversary of the successful court bid by the Right2Know Campaign and SA History Archive to force the SA government to release the full list of these areas.
News24 published the list in January 2015.
READ: List of national key points
In its attempt to win the case, the state said disclosing the list of South Africa's national key points would have put the country's security and defence at risk.
National key points are strategic installations, such as military bases or factories, which require special security. Previously, they were not allowed to be identified or photographed.
This list shows that most of Eskom's power stations are national key points.
Eskom said in a statement that the Medupi power station is of strategic and national importance due to its generating capacity of 4 764 MW once completed.
“It will be the largest dry cooled power station in the world, consisting of six super critical boilers and 6 turbine generator units with air cooled condensers,” it said.
Medupi, which was supposed to be fully online this year, is now expected to be fully online in 2020.
“The station is also critical to Eskom’s responsibility towards South Africa’s economic growth, job creation and socio-economic development of Lephalale in Limpopo,” Eskom said.
“Due to its critical importance to the national grid in providing sustainability of electricity supply and limiting load shedding, it is imperative for the safety and security of the asset that it be declared a national key point as defined by the National Key Points Act.”
