South Africa's Largest Coal-fired Power Projects Facing Delay

Researched by Industrial Info Resources India (Delhi, India)--South Africa's state-owned power utility Eskom (Johannesburg) faces delay in commissioning its two largest coal-fired power stations in the country. The two 4,800-megawatt (MW) power stations at Medupi and Kusile are running more than three years behind their original schedule. The first 800MW unit at Medupi is now slated to commence generation by the second quarter of 2014 as against its previous commissioning schedule of April 2011.

Delays from the contractors, Labor Union Strike and Protests by Environmental Pressure Group Greenpeace are the major reasons for the delay in execution of the two super-critical power generation facilities in South Africa. Eskom is building a total of 12 coal-fired units of 800MW each at the two stations with an investment of $8 billion.

To reduce consumption of water the company is installing dry-cooled condensers. According to Eskom, ALSPA Series-6 Distributed Control System (DCS) from Alstom (OTC: ALSMY) (Paris) will be installed in the power plant along with STF100 Tandem Compound Four Flow Steam turbines and GIGATOP 2-pole Hydrogen and Water Cooled Generator sets. Hitachi Limited's (NYSE:HIT) African subsidiary, Hitachi Power Africa Pty Limited (Johannesburg, South Africa) has supplied the supercritical coal-fired boilers to these power stations.

Medupi is a greenfield coal-fired power station being developed at the West of Lephalale in the Limpopo Province in South Africa. It has six units of 800MW each with a total capacity of 4,800MW. Eskom had earlier planned to commission of all the six units by 2013, which is now rescheduled for the first quarter of 2016.

The 4800-MW Kusile Power Station is located adjacent to the existing Kendal Power Station in the Witbank area of the Mpumalanga Province. The first unit of this plant is planned for commercial operation in June 2014, followed by the commissioning of the remaining units at an interval of nine-months, with the last unit expected to be in commercial operation by the end of 2018.

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