South Africa's Eskom Battles Murphy's Law at Mega Projects

Written by Richard Finlayson, Senior International Editor for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--South Africa's embattled power utility Eskom (Sunninghill, South Africa) is becoming a prime example of Murphy's Law: "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong."

Beset by critical maintenance problems with its ageing coal fleet, and coal-supply and wet-coal problems, it has suffered a coal silo collapse at the 4,110-megawatt (MW) Majuba power station, and is in an acute financial crisis as it looks for ways to fill the country's power gap and keep the lights on.

Central to these problems is the chronic postponement of the synchronization of the 794-MW Unit 6 at the 4,800-MW, mega coal-fired Medupi project. Initially, the unit was scheduled for synchronization in 2011, then to the end of 2013, then to the second half of 2014, and now to the second week of January 2015. The project team is still straining to bring in the synchronization by the end of December.

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Project General Manager Robin Crookes said that full commercial operations will meet the schedule at the end of March, and the unit will be handed over to Eskom by June 2015.

Five key stages--hydro tests, boiler chemical cleaning, turbine barring, draught group test run and first fires--have been completed, with a boiler blow-though now being conducted, Crookes said. Following this, pipes will be reconnected to enable the unit to move to the next "turbine-steam-to-set" stage, just ahead of the first synchronization.

Newly appointed Eskom Chief Executive Dan Marokane said that lessons learned on Unit 6 will change the way subsequent units, both at Medupi and the 4,800-MW Kusile project, are commissioned. The cost implications are being calculated. The cost of the Medupi project already has been revised from $8.3 billion to $9.5 billion, excluding interest during construction.

The continual delays in construction have been caused by a range of problems, including defective boiler welding and recurring labor problems, which have created havoc with Eskom's attempts to plan its way out of the power shortage crisis.

For related information, see January 31, 2014, article - South Africa's Eskom Replaces Alstom with Siemens for Medupi Boiler Protection System, and October 9, 2013, article - South Africa's Largest Coal-fired Power Projects Facing Delay.

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