Fire at Kriel will have no impact on load shedding

Eskom announced that a fire that started on Sunday evening at Kriel Power Station Unit 6 will not affect its ability to supply power.

The Kriel Power Station, located in Mpumalanga, is a coal-fired plant. The fire broke out at 5pm after an oil pipe burst, which caused an oil spill on hot surfaces of the turbine and triggered the blaze.

Eskom stated that the system “correctly tripped” due to the loss of hydraulic oil to the turbine valves.

Videos shared on social media showed large clouds of smoke and flames at the plant, with workers responding quickly to the incident.

Eskom reassured South Africans that the fire would not affect the current generation capacity or lead to load shedding.

They explained that the ongoing Generation Recovery Plan has provided extra support to handle situations like this, and that the system has enough reserves.

The fire and emergency team at Kriel acted quickly to put out and control the fire on Sunday, and there were no injuries reported.

All other units at the power station are still fully operational.

Eskom noted that a standard investigation is now underway to determine the damage and how long repairs will take.

They will provide further updates once the investigation is complete.

Kriel’s Unit 6 normally contributes 475MW to the power grid. With this unit temporarily offline, the total unplanned outages are at 8,483MW, which is still 4,517MW below the expected levels for summer 2024.

Currently, South Africa’s available generation capacity is 30,809MW, while Monday’s peak demand is expected to be 26,364MW.

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