Johannesburg - Due to the prolonged delay in unit 1's return, Minister in the Presidency responsible for electricity, Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, is concerned about the Koeberg Nuclear Power Station.
Ramokgopa said despite visiting the power plant in person to examine it, he knew nothing further about the situation when he briefed the media in Pretoria earlier today on the progress his department was making in implementing the Energy Action Plan.
He said that he had, as a result, elevated the issue with the board to ensure that they provided a detailed report of everything and that all was above board.
Despite this, Ramokgopa said he was not convinced that the power utility was on track to return unit 1 at the time they had promised and that this presented a real danger of this overlapping with the taking out of unit 2.
According to the electricity minister, the power utility having taken out unit one meant that the country lost 920 megawatts from the grid, which meant that if they had to take out unit 2 without the return of unit 1, the country would lose roughly 1840 megawatts in total.
"This is something we are trying to avert, but the reality is that I need to be wiser about our ability to return unit 1 as promised before we can take out unit 2. That is the risk that sits there, and I remain extremely worried about the situation at the Koeberg power station."
Unit 1 of the Koeberg Nuclear Power Station was switched off on December 10 for a planned refuelling and routine maintenance.
The outage at the power station was estimated to last for approximately six months.
The extended unavailability of the unit was due to the planned long outages, meaning the electricity supply system may be under additional strain during the outage.
The Star