REPAIR AND MAINTENANCE | KOEBERG
Koeberg: keeping the lights on for South Africa
Imposing rolling blackouts across South Africa even ahead of the winter peak demand season has prompted Eskom to reconsider the timing of its nuclear repair and refurbishment programme
DEEP ROLLING BLACKOUTS THAT HAVE hit South Africa have prompted a reappraisal of the repair, refurbishment and maintenance programme at South Africa’s only operating nuclear power plant, Koeberg near Cape Town. The two-unit facility supplies some 5% of the nation’s electricity and they are currently the only operating reactors in South Africa as well as the African continent. While the nuclear units play a significant role in maintaining grid stability, since the start of the year only a single unit, or half the capacity, has been operating. Both Koeberg 1 and 2 are PWRs. Unit 1 began construction
in 1976 and commercial operations begin in July 1984. Construction on Unit 2 also began in 1976 but commercial operations didn’t begin until just about a year later than unit 1, in November 1985. Units 1 and 2 have net capacities of 924 MWe and 930 MWe, respectively. The state-owned power utility Eskom is responsible for operating the reactors as well as maintaining them and this year both are due to be shut down as part of a planned repair and maintenance programme.
The planned outage of unit 2, the 25th refuelling outage
since commissioning, began on 18 January and originally had been anticipated as an outage lasting 155 days. This maintenance programme also included the replacement of the unit’s three steam generators and reactor pressure vessel head, which houses the reactor’s nuclear fuel. In March though, the company announced that, prior
to the start of any irreversible work, Eskom and the main contractor Framatome (now Areva) performed a final review to ensure that the steam generator replacement work would be completed in a timely way while ensuring the quality levels of the work. However, the review concluded that there was a significant likelihood that the unit would not be returned to service before the peak demand winter season, exacerbating the challenges faced by an already constrained grid. “Before we start cutting pipes, we conducted a final
review to ensure that the steam generator replacement work would be completed at the expected quality levels and in accordance with the outage schedule. It was just too risky to continue with this work,” Jan Oberholzer, Eskom’s Chief Operating Officer, explained in a statement.
26 | August 2022 |
www.neimagazine.com
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