South African Power Station Refurbishment Delayed Amid Blackouts

Cape Town — The Koeberg nuclear power station, where work is under way to extend the plant’s operational life by 20 years, will not be returning to full strength any time soon, News24 reports.

Departing Eskom executive Jan Oberholzer is believed to have delivered the bad news to the board of the power utility on July 12, 2023, adding to tensions between himself and chairperson Mpho Makwana, and precipitating Oberholzer’s departure. Oberholzer had been overseeing the Koeberg project.

Each unit of Koeberg delivers 920MW of energy, equal to one stage of load shedding each. The extended Koeberg outage dims hope for an end to load shedding by the start of 2024.

South Africa has endured scheduled power cuts since 2007 due to mismanagement at the national power utility.