Keeping Koeberg running safely has led to the nuclear power plant underperforming.
And that will be the case for almost the whole of 2023 as well.
Throughout 2022, the plant’s Unit 2 was marred with operational challenges and delays, ultimately resulting in a lack of energy availability.
Planned maintenance on that unit, as well as Unit 1, will see 920 megawatts of electricity put offline, from this December until June 2023 and then again around August for another six months.
This, however hasn’t deterred Eskom from going ahead with its plans to extend Koeberg’s operations for another 20 years.
Eskom’s COO, Jan Oberholzer, is committed to satisfying the International Atomic Energy Agency.
“We will also then invite them back in the beginning of 2024 to come and do a further and follow-up review. We have taken note of this report and we are addressing all the issues. And none of them was a surprise to ourselves”.
South Africa has already experienced nearly 2000 hours of load shedding between January and September , according to new research by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research.
This equates to a total of 155 days of power cuts since January.