Eskom mentioned the long-term operation venture of Unit 1 on the Koeberg Nuclear Power Station in Cape Town began on Wednesday night time, 7 December. The operation is a component of the utility’s plans to lengthen the working life of the continent’s solely nuclear energy station.
KOEBERG UNIT 1 OFFLINE UNTIL AT LEAST JUNE 2023
UPDATE:
Eskom introduced that the upkeep shutdown at Koeberg was delayed, on Thursday morning. It will now be taken offline on Friday morning.
The determination to delay was taken over fears that the loss of Koeberg’s producing capability may push load shedding to unprecedented ranges.
Energy knowledgeable Ted Blom accused the ability utility of deceptive the general public by failing to declare that they’d delayed the Koeberg switch-off.
In January 2022, Unit 2 at Koeberg was taken offline after 450 days of uninterrupted operation for “regular refuelling and maintenance.” That outage was scheduled for 5 months.
“This would be the twenty fifth refuelling outage on Unit 2 since commissioning and also will see the alternative of the unit’s three steam mills.
“During this outage, the reactor pressure vessel head, which houses the nuclear fuel while the station is in operation, will also be replaced,” said Eskom.
The December operations will see Unit 1 shut down for normal upkeep and refuelling. Three steam mills (SGR) may also get replaced. Eskom mentioned Unit 1’s reactor strain vessel head was changed years in the past.
Eskom COO, Jan Oberholzer, mentioned the Unit 1 outage is predicted to final till June 2023. This means 920MWe of capability shall be unavailable within the coming months.
Each unit on the nuclear energy station delivers about 920MWe to the nationwide energy grid, which is dominated by coal. When it’s working at full steam, Koeberg supplies roughly 5% of South Africa’s electrical energy.
Eskom initially estimated that the work could possibly be accomplished in 120 to 150 days. This was elevated to 180 to 200 days after session with nuclear energy firm Framatome, which pulled off an analogous steam generator alternative within the United States earlier this 12 months.
“They’ve done it many times before so I asked them what is a realistic period to replace steam generators and they asked me what was in our plan … and they said there’s no way you can do it [in that time frame],” mentioned Oberholzer at Eskom’s State of the System briefing on 15 November.
The work accomplished at Koeberg is a component of Eskom’s plan to lengthen the plant’s lifespan for an additional 20 years. The present working licence expires in 2024-2025.
According to Nuclear News, Eskom submitted its formal software to lengthen the working licence to South Africa’s National Nuclear Regulator in 2021 and submitted its security case for long-term operation in help of the applying earlier in 2022.
The nuclear regulator has two years to take into account the applying and supply an end result. No security considerations have been recognized, and it’s probably that the licence to function past 2024 shall be supplied.
The energy utility introduced that Stage 6 load shedding can be applied till Friday, 9 December and advised that energy cuts shall be half of each day life for the foreseeable future due to a quantity of elements, together with the Koeberg venture.
READ: Confirmed: Stage 6 load shedding till Friday, Stage 5 after that
“The refuelling and maintenance outage starting tonight, as well as the long-term operation project of Unit 1 of the Koeberg Nuclear Power Station, together with the October chimney failure that has forced three generation units offline at Kusile Power Station, will further reduce available generation capacity and exacerbate the occurrence of load shedding over the next 6 -12 months,” said the utility on Wednesday.
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