Pretoria - Eskom’s Medupi Unit 6 is currently being progressively tested and optimised to enable it to join the Eskom generation fleet as a contributor to energy supply, said the parastatal on Wednesday.
“Medupi Unit 6 was successfully synchronised to the national power grid for the first time on 2 March 2015 and is currently being progressively tested and optimised to enable it to join the Eskom generation fleet as a significant contributor to the country’s constrained power supply,” said the utility in an update.
Medupi consists of six units of approximately 800 MW each, for a grand total of 4800 MW, which is 12% of Eskom’s total installed capacity.
The utility said it is pulling out all the stops to ensure that the completion of the remaining five units is not hampered by technical or labour issues.
“The synchronisation process will take time to ensure that the power it delivers is stable, consistent and reliable. This is also to ensure that the unit is safe to operate and will perform exactly as designed for the next 50 years.
“From its first synchronisation, the unit has been delivering 400 MW but because of the testing and combustion optimisation, this power is delivered intermittently and this will continue until full power (800 MW) is reached around end-May 2015.”
Further testing and fine-tuning will be performed until there is satisfaction that the system is fully operable and reliable for final handover.
The construction site was evacuated last Wednesday while Eskom engaged contractors, who are employers, on how to restore stability and return the site back for normal production, as well as the action to be taken against participants in the illegal industrial action.
“Contractors have since evaluated their position on the evidence gathered and are executing their plan to deal with their employees that actively participated in the unprotected industrial action.
“They have further advised the affected trade unions of the action being taken against these employees. It is Eskom’s expectation that the contractors, together with their unions, will resolve the matter sooner rather than later,” said Eskom.
The number of affected workers is 1 700, while the total complement for the construction project is around 14 000.
“Eskom will meet with the unions to discuss its discontent at last week’s incident as Eskom has invested a significant sum of time and resources in the partnership agreement (PA) for the purposes of addressing the plight of workers and achieving peace and stability on the Medupi and Kusile projects.”
Following the signing of the PA, work stoppages were brought down to a minimum and workers were benefiting out of better working conditions. – SAnews.gov.za
