Capacity expansion

Additional power stations and major power lines are being built on a massive scale to meet rising electricity demand in South Africa. Eskom's capacity expansion budget is R385 billion up to 2013 and is expected to grow to more than a trillion rand by 2026. Ultimately Eskom will double its capacity to 80 000MW by 2026.

Since the programme started in 2005, an additional 4453.5 MW has already been commissioned. The plan is to deliver an additional 16 304MW in power station capacity by 2017. The formal opening of both Ankerlig and Gourikwa open cycle gas turbine stations took place in October 2007. Both these stations have subsequently been expanded. At Gourikwa two more units have been added, each with 148MW capacity. These were completed in March 2009. The building of five additional units at Ankerlig with capacities ranging between 148.3 and 149.2 MW was also completed in March 2009.