One of the three generation units at Kusile power station that has been out of service since October 2022 is now ready to be brought back online, but Eskom is still waiting to hear if it has the necessary environmental approval to proceed.
Returning these units to service is a “critical path on the way out of load-shedding”, electricity minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa said.
The minister of environment, forestry and fisheries, Barbara Creecy, still needs to pronounce a decision on an appeal lodged by civil society organisations against the postponement granted to Eskom by the national air quality officer in terms of compliance time frames for minimum emission standards for new plants.
According to Eskom, Kusile unit 3 is now ready to return to service. The unit was one of the three that had to be taken offline almost a year ago after a flue gas desulphurisation duct, which carries emissions from unit 1 to a large chimney housing the ducts for units 1, 2 and 3, collapsed under the weight of ash build-up inside the pipe.
The three units have combined generation capacity of about 2,400MW (equal to about two stages of load-shedding). To bring the units back sooner, and help alleviate load-shedding, Eskom proposed implementing a temporary solution involving the use of temporary stacks without the use of the flue gas desulphurisation mechanism for 13 months.
While the temporary solution will allow Eskom to bring the units back 12 months sooner than would have been possible if they only pursued a permanent solution, bypassing the flue gas desulphurisation mechanism will result in increased sulphur dioxide (SO2) emissions during the 13-month period.
In March, Creecy granted Eskom an exemption from complying with air-quality regulations allowing it to proceed with the implementation of the temporary fix.
However, for Eskom to start up the units using the temporary stacks, it also needed to apply to the National Air Quality Officer for a one-off postponement with the compliance time frames for minimum emission standards for new plants.
This postponement was granted in June, and then in July civil society organisations, including Vukani Environmental Justice Movement in Action and groundWork, filed an appeal against the postponement decision.
Eskom originally anticipated that it would return the Kusile units to service by December, but the repairs are now running ahead of schedule with unit 3 already ready to go online and the other units set to be operational again by November.
However, none of the units can be switched on before Creecy announced a decision on the appeal.
“Eskom cannot legally operate the units until the appeal is ruled upon, or the minister specifically permits Eskom to continue operation while the appeals are adjudicated … we are expecting a response soon since all [our] responses to appeals were submitted on August 18,” Eskom told Business Day.
Brandon Abdinor, a climate advocacy lawyer for the Centre for Environmental Rights which is representing the parties who filed the appeal, said according to the original appeal timelines they should get a response from Creecy by the end-September.
The department of forestry, fisheries and the environment would not confirm by when the appeal decision would be announced. Peter Mbelengwa, spokesperson for the department, said they would communicate as soon as the appeal decision is finalised.
Ramokgopa said they were waiting for a response from Creecy. “She has been applying her mind [to the appeal] and we will give her the space to do that.”
“Once we get a response, we should be able to give an indication of when we will bring those megawatts on stream.”
According to the environmental groups that lodged the appeal, the health effects of the excess pollution that will result from running the three units for 13 months without the flue gas desulphurisation mechanism could result in societal costs of up to R24bn.
The cost estimate is based on modelling done by the Centre for Research into Energy and Clean Air, which projected that increased emissions from Kusile could result in 670 excess deaths, 3,000 asthma emergency room visits, 720,000 days of work absence and societal costs of as much as R24bn.
“In addition to the sixfold increase in SO2 (sulphur dioxide) emissions (an excess of 280,000 tonnes), [increased emissions] will also see a 40% increase in the emission of mercury — a potent neurotoxin that persists in the environment for years,” the environmental groups said.
In papers filed with the appeals and legal review directorate the groups stated that the excess CO2 emissions were equal to almost 20 years of emissions from the normal operation of the plant.
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