South Africa’s power utility Eskom announced the shutdown of the last generating unit of its 61-year-old Komati Power Station. The station’s final commissioned unit, Komati Unit 9, entered service in March 1966.
The other units were decommissioned over time as they approached the end of their useful lives.
From site leveling to Unit 9’s commercial operation, the station took eight years to complete. It was built for an estimated R80 million and was capable of producing 1,000MW of power at peak capacity. However, it was decommissioned in the early 1980s due to an excess of electricity in the country, the station’s age, and high maintenance expenses.
“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 utility claims it is a component of its Just Energy Transition Strategy, which “places equal priority on the ‘transition to lower carbon technologies’ and the ability to do so in a way that is ‘just’ and sustainable.”
Eskom has also collaborated with the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP), the South African Renewable Energy Technology Centre (Saretec), and the Cape Peninsula University of Technology to create a training facility to retrain its staff to deal with renewable energy.
The Komati closure occurs just days before South Africa is scheduled to present its plan to switch from fossil fuels to green energy using R155.59 billion in subsidies from many wealthy nations at the COP27 United Nations Climate Change Conference in 2022.
Municipalities in Mpumalanga would be particularly badly hit by the decommissioning, as some rely on coal for more than 40% of their economic activities. According to the Minerals Council South Africa, coal mining earned the country R139 billion ($9.6 billion) in 2019 and employed over 92,000 people. With many banks refusing to finance new coal projects, Eskom intends to transform some of its plants into renewable energy facilities, add gas turbines, and establish industrial zones. Above and beyond the new plans to switch to cleaner energy, Eskom still has a hefty debt of R464 billion to service.
