The Western Cape's blackout blues are one step closer to becoming a thing of the past: the replacement rotor for one of the units at Koeberg's nuclear power station arrives in Cape Town on Wednesday.
The 200-ton second-hand rotor, on loan from a French utility, has been shipped from Europe. It will replace the Koeburg rotor damaged by a bolt in December.
A government inquiry into the incident has not yet established whether the bolt got there through negligence or sabotage.
The bolt damaged the generator's rotor and stator.
The stator is being repaired locally and Eskom spokesperson Fani Zulu said installation of the rotor could not begin until repairs to the stator had been completed. He said Eskom hoped "to turn on the machine" in the middle of May.
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This would allow Koeberg's second nuclear reactor to come offline for refuelling, six weeks later than scheduled.
The second reactor has had to keep operating, at a slightly lower output, until the first reactor has been repaired.
Cape Town gets about half its electricity from Koeberg and half from coal-fired power stations in Mpumalanga, 1 500km away.
When there are problems at Koeberg, the transmission lines are unable to carry the extra load necessary to make up for Koeberg's shortfall.
- This article was originally published on page 3 of Cape Times on April 05, 2006
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