Koeberg Unit 1 outage delayed to allow stability of the power system
8 December 2022
After careful assessment of the current state of the national grid, Eskom has decided to delay the start of the outage of Unit 1 of the Koeberg Nuclear Power Station to allow time to stabilise the system and the recovery of some generation capacity. Koeberg Unit 1 has been online for 407 days since the last outage.
The Koeberg Unit 1 refuelling and maintenance outage is therefore planned to now commence on Saturday 10 December 2022, should the grid conditions have recovered to ensure stability of the system.
“While Eskom is ready to commence with the outage, with the contractors and all the requisite resources on standby, grid stability is an important consideration prior to shutting down the Unit 1 reactor to commence the maintenance and refuelling outage,” said Sadika Touffie, Acting Chief Nuclear Officer. “This is going to be a long but necessary outage – the first of its kind for Koeberg. Eskom has taken care to ensure no undue delays are experienced once the project gets under way.”
The outage will be for a duration of approximately six months. The extended unavailability of the unit is due to the planned long outages does mean the electricity supply system may be under additional strain during the outage.