Wednesday
30 September 2020: The
first of Koeberg nuclear power station’s long-awaited six new replacement steam
generators arrived at the plant yesterday. This is a culmination of exceptional
teamwork and collaboration, heralding a key milestone for Africa’s only nuclear
power station. The steam generators weigh approximately 380 tons each and are
about 20 metres long, and the first three will be installed into Unit 1 between
February and June 2021.
They
are being transported by road from Cape Town Harbour over a period of eight
hours per steam generator, covering the distance of approximately 40kms. The
trailer used to transport the steam generator is the longest in South Africa,
coming in at 42 metres in length and requiring four trucks to transport each of
the Steam Generators.
They
will be housed in the Replacement Steam Generator Facility that has been
constructed on the Koeberg site, until the old steam generators are removed
from the plant during the unit’s next outage. The steam generator replacement
has been planned into Koeberg’s outage schedule and Eskom’s generation plan.
As
part of the programme to extend the power station’s operating life by 20 years,
first approved by the Eskom board in 2010, these steam generators will replace
the current steam generators that have been in operation at Koeberg since the
first unit was connected to the national electricity grid in 1984. The
Steam Generator replacement is a key part of the larger programme to extend
Koeberg’s operating life, which was budgeted to cost an estimated R20 billion,
and will be the best investment into sustainable and less carbon intensive
electricity generation infrastructure that Eskom can buy.
The
replacement of steam generators at Unit 2, which is currently undergoing a refuelling
outage until mid-October, has also been planned to coincide with the unit’s
next maintenance and refuelling outage in order to minimise generation downtime
on the unit. The replacement will occur between January and May 2022.
The
project’s extensive engineering analyses and safety studies
concluded that the new steam generators can be safely installed, commissioned,
and operated, thereby enabling the power station to continue generating
electricity beyond its original 40 years operational life. Steam generator
replacement is the most intensive and most expensive project that a nuclear
power station can undertake, and several stations internationally have already
done so successfully. In addition, these analyses and other studies are
being reviewed by the National Nuclear Regulator, to approve the installation
subsequent to their review and acceptance.
Upon
removal from the plant, the current steam generators will be stored on the
Koeberg site, where they will be packaged and dismantled for final disposal at
a national nuclear waste repository, which is the responsibility of the
National Radioactive Waste Disposal Institute (NRWDI).
ENDS