The 61-year-old Komati Power Station is being revamped into a large renewable power facility with solar, wind, and battery capacity.
“After serving South Africa since 1961, the coal-fired Komati Power Station in Mpumalanga has today reached the end of its operating life and has been shut down from midday,” the utility said in a statement.The other units were shut down over the years as they reached the end of their working life.It cost an estimated R80 million to build and was capable of generating 1,000MW of electricity at peak output.
South Africa’s developing energy crisis, which gave rise to the first appearance of load-shedding, saw the station being brought back into service.Eskom said the plant’s shutdown would not significantly impact the national electricity grid as the remaining unit only contributed 121MW. It will comprise the installation of 150MW of solar generation, 70MW of wind energy, and 150MW of storage batteries that will help ensure its associated transmission infrastructure is put to good use.Eskom said the project was one of the largest coal-fired power plant decommissioning, repowering and repurposing projects globally and would serve as a global reference on how to transition fossil-fuel assets.
Eskom has also partnered with the South African Renewable Energy Technology Centre of the Cape Peninsula University of Technology and the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet to develop a training facility to reskill its employees to work on renewable power.
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