History: The planning and design of
Kriel Power Station began in the early seventies. Construction also started
in the early seventies and the station began operating at full capacity early
1979. When Kriel was completed in 1979, it was the largest coal-fired
station in the Southern Hemisphere. Kriel was instrumental in breaking
ground for the large 3600 MW power stations such as Duvha, Matla, Kendal,
Matimba and Lethabo. It was one of the first stations to be supplied with
coal from a fully mechanised coal mine, with the coal arriving at the boilers
from the mine. Kriel is unique in that each turbine generator set is
separate, whereas in Eskom's other stations, all the turbines are housed in a
single turbine hall, all placed along the same axis. It is a winning station
in terms of its plant performance and was awarded the Jan H Smith trophy for
being the best power station by Eskom in 1991 and 1995. Kriel
performed very well with all operational indicators being satisfactory
and some outstanding technical achievements, particularly in the area of
plant performance. We had set ourselves the goal of a unit capability factor
of 90%; a planned outage rate of 7% and a forced outage rate of 3% and by the
year 2000. This was already bettered in 1996, placing us in the best quartile
of the UNIPEDE member countries. Kriel Power Station, generating
3000 MW, was the forerunner of the new generation of giant coal-fired power
stations developed to generate the increasing supply of electricity demanded
by South Africa's constant growth. Technical
details:
-
Six Units: Each generate
500MW
-
Installed capacity:
2850MW
-
Ramp Rate per hour:
30MW
-
Average availability over
last 3 years: 76.8%
-
Design efficiency at rated
turbine MCR (%):34.99%
-
Average production over
last 3 years: 17 880 GWh
Contact
details: Tel: (017) 615-2000 Where is
Kriel: Between the towns of Kriel and Ogies in Mpumalanga
|

|