Good news for Eskom’s Kusile power station
Kusile unit 2 was synchronised to South Africa’s power grid today, two days before the planned date, Eskom has announced.
“This marks another significant milestone in the Eskom Generation Operational Recovery plan which aims at increasing the energy availability factor to 70% by March 2025,” the state-owned power utility said.
Each generating unit at Kusile can contribute up to 800MW of capacity to the grid.
Kusile units 1, 2, and 3 were taken offline due to the collapse of a part of the flue duct in late October 2022.
Faulty emission control systems and human errors led to a cement-like deposit forming in the flue-gas duct, causing a part of the chimney-like structure to collapse on 23 October 2022.
Eskom publicly confirmed the failure at the power station near Emalahleni in Mpumalanga on 2 November 2022 — 10 days after it occurred.
Photos of the wrecked chimney began circulating on social media, after which Eskom quickly issued a media statement.
It explained a section of the duct exiting the sulphur dioxide absorber failed on the horizontal rubber expansion joint and compensator.
“[The compensator] is a bend to direct flue gas up the [duct] and allow for thermal expansion of the chimney,” Eskom said at the time.
The failure occurred while Kusile Unit 1 was on forced shutdown for flue-gas desulphuration (FGD) recirculating pump repairs.
Unit 3 continued to operate for several days before being taken offline as a preventative measure.
All three units are now back in service, providing 2,400MW to the grid.
“[This] translates to two and a half stages of load-shedding,” Eskom stated.
“With the three units back in service, Kusile in total will be generating 3200 MW.”
Eskom thanked the Kusile team for their dedication and commitment in bringing back the much-needed megawatts to South Africans, earlier than planned.
Aerial view of Kusile power station flue ducts
Eskom applied for an exemption from emissions limitations to expedite Kusile’s repair using a temporary stack while the FGD structure is repaired.
The FGD is designed to help lower harmful emissions from the burning of coal.
The National Air Quality Officer granted Eskom a once-off postponement on the compliance timeframes for minimum emission standards for new plants.
This will allow Eskom to operate the units with the temporary stacks until 31 March 2025 at the latest.
Unfortunately, this carries a human health cost.
According to Groundwork and Friends of the Earth South Africa calculations, Eskom’s pollution could cost South Africa $24 billion (R446 billion) in health impacts.
A report from The Finland-based Centre for Research into Energy and Clean Air (CREA) estimated that Eskom’s coal station pollution will kill 79,500 people from 2025. This is even if Eskom shuts down its coal fleet according to its current power station decommissioning schedule.
If Eskom fully complied with emission standards, it would save 34,400 lives. However, it would have to decommission 16,000MW of capacity.
This would result in disastrously high levels of load-shedding, removing 14–16 stages worth of power from the grid.
Energy expert Chris Yelland has calculated that stage 1 load-shedding costs the country about R20 billion per month. The figure doubles with each increasing stage.
Based on that calculation, the availability of Eskom’s three Kusile units running on the temporary stacks — potentially until March 2025 — will save South Africa’s economy R640 billion.
This also directly impacts human life, leaving Eskom and South Africa to face a version of the trolley problem.
Down one path, you endanger thousands. Down the other, millions.
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