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Delays in converting Eskom’s decommissioned Komati coal power plant into a hybrid renewable energy facility have caused “despair and frustration” in the small Mpumalanga town, Sunday Times reports.
The publication said that many Komati residents — including business people — had observed a devasting economic downturn and increased unemployment as the project has moved at a snail’s pace.
When Sunday Times visited the town this week, it was greeted with empty streets and numerous “house for sale” signs.
The reduced activity might be explained by Eskom transferring most of its Komati employees to support and augment skills in other power stations and areas of the business.
However, the remaining employees Eskom assigned to participate in the Komati Repowering and Repurposing project have now been left to sit on their hands.
Progress on this project has been delayed due to “challenges in securing funding”, Eskom told Sunday Times.
The R9-billion loan facility that will be used for the plant’s construction was approved by the World Bank and Eskom board months ago but was still awaiting “other” approvals.
“It is still awaiting final regulatory approval before becoming effective, which is expected to be in place by the end of July 2023,” Eskom said.
“While waiting to address the financial challenges, we have continued with project development activities and progressed with the establishment of a training facility.”
In addition to Eskom’s employees being directly affected, private contractors have lost their jobs, and some of them doubt they would get work at the plant given their line of experience.
Sunday Times also spoke to multiple business owners who lamented Komati’s gradual decline into a ghost town.
Among them was a guest house owner that had to retrench 24 people as most of her businesses had not received any guests in 2023.
Komati Power StationThe Komati pilot project represents an important step in Eskom’s Just Energy Transition, which will see it gradually reduce its coal reliance in favour of cleaner energy sources.
The plant is set to house 150MW of solar power, 70MW of wind energy, and 150MW of energy storage batteries.
Eskom shut down the last of Komati’s coal power units in October 2022, 61 years after it first entered commercial operation.
The fact that it was offline for two decades meant the plant’s effective operating age was closer to 40 years.
The plant’s downtime was due to being mothballed in the 1980s as Eskom had surplus capacity and had newer power stations available to supply electricity.
When it returned, Komati was one of the utility’s best-performing stations.
Its first unit was brought back into commercial service in 2009, in the early days of Eskom’s supply shortfalls and load-shedding.
By 2012, six of its nine units were back online and supplying electricity to the grid.
It is unclear who needs to sign off on the remaining regulatory approvals.
Mineral resources and energy minister Gwede Mantashe previously told Parliament it was a mistake to decommission the station.
“Komati was providing electricity at a 70% energy availability factor (EAF). Despite this performance, people decided to decommission it,” the minister said.
Gwede Mantashe, Minister of Mineral Resources and EnergyHowever, Mantashe failed to mention that at the time of its shutdown, Komati’s contribution to the grid was fairly modest.
Only one of its nine units was contributing 121MW of capacity, about 12% of the load shed under one full stage of load-shedding.
The plant’s total installed capacity of 1,000MW is also dwarfed by the likes of newer power stations — like Medupi and Kusile — with 4,800MW of capacity each.
That being said, Medupi and Kusile have had dismal EAFs in the past few years, owing to design mishaps that have caused severe underperformance.
While Medupi has been improving significantly, recently achieving a sustained 70% EAF, Kusile currently has only one of its four units running.
Units 1, 2, and 3 have been offline since the collapse of a flue-gas duct in October 2022, caused by a build-up of cement-like sludge due to design deficiencies.
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