A fire broke out in at Kriel Power Station’s s Unit 6 on Sunday evening.
The station is located in Mpumalanga, a coal-fired power plant.
Kriel has six 500MW units for a total installed capacity of 3,000MW with a turbine maximum continuous rating of 36.90%, according to Eskom.
Videos on the social media site, X (formerly Twitter) showed huge smoke clouds and bursts of fire at the station, with workers rushing to attend to the matter.
WATCH
Videos of Kriel Power Station (Unit 6) today around 17:30 pic.twitter.com/sxJdkKQGT2
At this stage, there has been no information on how the fire started, if there were casualties or what impact this fire will have on South Africa’s energy capacity.
IOL Business has reached out to Eskom to get more information on the disaster and what impact it will have on future load shedding.
Five years worth of energy
Last week, Eskom said that South Africa has enough generation capacity for the next five years, according to a new report by the utility.
The fire at Kriel may now impact this timeline and Eskom’s ability to keep the lights on.
Eskom said that it has taken into account the possibility that the economy could grow by 2.6% over this period and can say that the country has enough generation capacity to meet the requirements this growth would entail.
The report noted that Eskom’s power stations need to have an average Energy Availability Factor (EAF) of about 63% in order to keep the lights on for the next five years.
The utility said in its medium-term system adequacy outlook that if South Africa’s EAF was in decline and headed towards the 50% mark, the country would face load shedding.
IOL BUSINESS