{"id":126723,"date":"2016-06-13T13:17:49","date_gmt":"2016-06-13T11:17:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=126723"},"modified":"2016-06-13T13:17:49","modified_gmt":"2016-06-13T11:17:49","slug":"what-you-need-to-know-about-eskoms-newest-r25-billion-power-plant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/126723\/what-you-need-to-know-about-eskoms-newest-r25-billion-power-plant\/","title":{"rendered":"What you need to know about Eskom&#8217;s newest R25 billion power plant"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As temperatures across South Africa plummeted over the weekend, power utility Eskom<span class=\"focusParagraph\"> linked up the first of four units at its Ingula power plant on Friday.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The company announced on Monday (13 June 2016), that u<span class=\"focusParagraph\">nit four of the hydro-powered Ingula plant in Kwazulu Natal, has added 333 megawatts (MW) to the grid.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Reuters reported that construction on the R25 billion ($1.65 billion) plant began in 2006 and all four units are expected to be fully operational in 2017 to produce 1,332 MW.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It is the first of four units to commercially support the national grid ahead of schedule, powering South Africa into the future,&#8221; the power utility said.<\/p>\n<p>All four of Ingula\u2019s units are scheduled for commercial operation in 2017.\u00a0 &#8220;Thanks to the hard work and drive of the Ingula Team, Unit 4 was brought forward ahead of the 2017 schedule,&#8221; Eskom said.<\/p>\n<p>Unit 4 was synchronized to the national grid on 25 March 2016 and has been undergoing optimisation whilst supporting the national grid.<\/p>\n<p>Optimisation is a process whereby, after synchronisation, certain tests need to be conducted to ensure that the unit performs as per design specifications.<\/p>\n<p>Additional information on Ingula:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Ingula\u2019s four units are located 350 metres underground in the world\u2019s largest machine hall in mud-rock.<\/li>\n<li>To turn the more than 500 ton rotating mass of the Generator Rotor and Turbine, water is released from Ingula\u2019s upper dam, Bedford Dam, situated 460 m higher and two kilometres away.<\/li>\n<li>Water flows at high speeds down to the turbines at around 60km per hour with enough water passing through each turbine to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool in six seconds.<\/li>\n<li>Rotating at 428 revolutions per minute, each unit will produce 333MW, a total for the station of 1 332MW.<\/li>\n<li>On completion of all 4 units, Ingula will be part of Eskom\u2019s Peaking fleet of power stations.\u00a0 It can respond to demand increases on the National Grid within two-and-a-half minutes.<\/li>\n<li>Upon completion Ingula will be Africa\u2019s newest and largest pumped storage scheme and the 19th largest in the world.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Ingula unit 3 is currently under repair based on an incident that was experienced during the optimization process, post synchronisation.\u00a0 This unit was synchronised to the National Grid on 6 March 2016 and supported the Grid until 6 April 2016 when the incident occurred.<\/p>\n<p>Ingula unit 2 was synchronized to the National Grid on 22 May 2016 and is under optimisation.<\/p>\n<p>Ingula unit 1 is still under construction. Ingula units 3, 2 and 1 are on track for commercial operation in 2017, Eskom said.<\/p>\n<p><strong>More on Eskom<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/123105\/plans-in-place-to-boost-south-africas-economy\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>How government aims to grow South Africa\u2019s economy<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/126637\/eskoms-quiet-r564-million-gupta-bailout-report\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Eskom\u2019s \u2018quiet\u2019 R564 million Gupta bailout: report<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/energy\/126597\/gupta-company-is-saving-us-billions-eskom-chairman\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Gupta company is saving us billions: Eskom chairman<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As temperatures across South Africa plummeted over the weekend, power utility Eskom linked up the first of four units at its Ingula power plant on Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":126737,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1164,26],"class_list":["post-126723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-eskom","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126723"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126723\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":126739,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126723\/revisions\/126739"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}