[ad_1]
Citizen reporter
Pylons at Eskom’s Koeberg Nuclear Power Plant on August 24, 2015 in Cape Town, South Africa. Koeberg is the only commercial nuclear power plant in Africa. (Photo by Gallo Images / Nardus Engelbrecht)
He has called on South Africans to continue to use electricity sparingly as the system remains vulnerable and unstable.
Eskom has taken Koeberg’s Unit 1 offline for repair after an increase in the leak rate was observed at one of its three steam generators on Sunday.
Although the leak rate was within safe limits, Eskom says it made the decision to take Koeberg’s Unit 1 offline for repairs, routine maintenance and refueling, which was originally scheduled to begin in February.
The unit is expected to be operational again during May 2021.
“The steam generator is a tubular heat exchanger that mechanically dries the steam produced during the nuclear power generation process. The closure of the plant takes several hours and the process is still underway; once closed, the fuel will be discharged from the reactor core to allow maintenance activities to take place and to address the cause of the increased leak rate. There is no risk to the plant, personnel or the environment. Unit 2 continues to operate and generate safely at full power, ”he said.
ALSO READ: DA will oppose pension money to reduce Eskom’s debt of more than R500 billion
This comes just days after Eskom suspended load shedding due to low electricity demand. The utility said in a statement last week that it would use the opportunity of lower demand to replenish emergency generation reserves in preparation for the increased demand expected during January as economic activity resumes.
“During this period, Eskom will also continue to seek further reliability maintenance as previously planned and communicated. While this will put pressure on the generation plant, maintenance is necessary to improve the reliability and performance of the plants.
“We currently have 9,170MW in planned maintenance, while another capacity of 11,334MW is not available due to unplanned maintenance. Eskom teams are working around the clock to bring as many of these units back into service as soon as possible, ”he said.
He has called on South Africans to continue to use electricity sparingly as the system remains vulnerable and unstable.
For more news your way, download The Citizen app to ios and Android.
[ad_2]
