Eskom suspended Koeberg Power Station’s General Manager at the beginning of this month.
In a press statement issued on Friday 4 June the power utility confirmed investigations into the performance of the Koeberg Nuclear Power Station are being conducted while the former general manager is suspended.
Eskom’s Chief Nuclear Officer, Riedewaan Bakardien, will oversee all the operations of the power station. “Eskom is currently experiencing load shedding that is affecting the entire country and its economy,” the power utility explained in the statement. “One of Eskom’s biggest generating units, with a capacity of 900 MW, Koeberg Unit 1 has been on an outage since January, and could have assisted in reducing the depth of load shedding had the unit been brought back on time as originally planned.”
Eskom confirmed there are no nuclear safety concerns at Koeberg, and if needed the required time will be taken to complete all the outstanding work before returning unit 1 to the grid.
Eskom leadership has been concerned with outage performance at Koeberg nuclear power plant, and the recent outage on Unit 1 has again been plagued with delays resulting in significant slippage on the return to service date.
The unit is currently planned to return to service during the third week of June.
Eskom leadership and the board encourage Koeberg staff to continue to focus on the remaining outage work and safely returning Unit 1 as soon as possible, as it is an essential part of the national fleet of generating assets.
