'Extremely worried': Electricity minister escalating Koeberg life-extension delay to Eskom board | Business

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Ramokgopa has expressed anger about the delays in refurbishing nuclear power plant Koeberg, saying that even after a visit there this past week he was 'none the wiser' about when unit 1 would return to service and what was really going on.

Minister of Electricity Kgosientsho Ramokgopa is unhappy over delays in Koeberg's life-extension project.There is increasing risk of an overlap between the delay of unit 1 returning to service and unit 2 going offline.

"If that were to happen, we are going to lose an aggregate 1840 MW- two units having gone out there at the same time. It is something we are trying to avert and like I said I will come back because there are additional questions that were not responded to when I met with the team at Koeberg. So, I'm none the wiser about our ability to return this unit as promised.

But he said the utility and government should"leave no stone unturned" in finding out what was causing all the problems, adding that the"sovereign interest of this country must be protected at all costs". "Ultimately, you can pass the buck as much as you like, but the project managers at Eskom are accountable to the board and the board is accountable to various ministers."He said Ramokgopa did not mention the 21 July 2024 deadline when Eskom's operating licence expires, adding that the"country was being painted into a corner by ongoing delays in this life-extension project".

News24 reported at the weekend there are major worries that G7's court case could deal a serious blow to Eskom's plans to add more megawatts to the grid, because if its interdict is successful, the allocation of grid access to new projects will be frozen and projects in development will stall.

"Of course there is a court process, we will not interfere with that, we have no intention of doing that. But we will do everything possible to ensure that we engage with the parties referred to themselves as G7 to see how best we can find a resolution that first addresses the interest of the country, without undermining the commercial and financial interests of the players in the renewable energy space.

 

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Eskom not in a position to speedily finance grid expansion, says RamokgopaSpeaking at a briefing on Sunday morning, the Electricity Minister said the expansion and the strengthening of the grid is going to take an inordinate amount of money that the power utility doesn't yet have.
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