Ramokgopa 'extremely worried' about Koeberg maintenance delays
With a heavy tone, the electricity minister said that the delayed return of Koeberg unit one would have a negative ripple effect on the country's overall energy supply.
JOHANNESBURG - Minister of Electricity Kgosientsho Ramokgopa has expressed concern over maintenance frequency the Koeberg nuclear power station's unit one.
Ramokgopa briefed the media on the state of the national grid, with updates on the energy action plan on Sunday.
Two weeks ago, he said he was impressed with how Eskom was handling winter electricity demand, but now his tone is more worrisome.
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“I remain extremely worried about the situation at Koeberg,” expressed Ramokgopa.
With a heavy tone, the electricity minister said that the delayed return of Koeberg unit one would have a negative ripple effect on the country's overall energy supply.
Ramokgopa touched on the importance of keeping up with maintenance.
“We should have returned this unit some time in July. As I speak to you, I think the outage slip now is over 71 days.”
He explained why maintenance at Koeberg unit one needed to be completed on time.
“This presents a real danger of the overlap in the delayed return of unit one and the taking off of unit two.”
He said if this were to happen, an aggregate of 1,840 megawatts would be lost by both units going offline.
