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Four units of the Kusile Power Station are expected back up by the end of the year, with Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa confident of less severe load shedding should this happen.
He said the timeline for return of the units had been cut down by a month, with unit 4 expected to be on by end of next week, while units 1 to 3 expected to be fired up towards November.
Ramokgopa said:
He was speaking on Monday during his site visit to the coal-fired power station in Mpumalanga, and was upbeat about the progress made in getting the units back online.
READ: Seven months later, Ramokgopa is a shining light in Eskom's sea of darkness
According to Ramokgopa, unit 4 was out for 20-day planned maintenance whilst unit 1, 2 and 3 have been taken out by the collapse of the flue-gas desulphurisation (FGD) unit in October 2022.
He said engineers had found an engineering solution to bypass the FGD, which reduces sulphur dioxide (SO2) released to the atmosphere, by using temporary chimneys.
He said this paved the way for the return of units 1, 2 and 3 and that unit 4 will immediately bring 720 megawatts to the grid.
The minister said:
READ: 'No shortcut to ending load shedding,' says Ramokgopa amid indefinite stage 6 blackouts
He reiterated that kusile was an important part in the resolution of load shedding and that unit 5, which caught fire in October last year, should come on stream towards the end of the year.
But Ramokgopa said the return of unit 5 was still to be reconfigured and that priority was given to the commercial units, which he said were units that were going pump Eskom with megawatts immediately.
He said:
