An explosion has completely destroyed generation Unit 4 at Eskom’s newly ‘completed’ Medupi power plant on Sunday. This is clearly a massive setback on a project that has seemed doomed to fail since its commencement in 2007.

The explosion has taken the 800MW generator in unit 4 completely off the grid. That doesn’t bode well for the country’s already weak generational capacity. Load shedding has not been confirmed yet but we wouldn’t be surprised if an announcement isn’t too far off. Energy analyst, consultant and electrical engineer Chris Yelland posted pictures on Twitter that shows the destruction.

First pictures of the damage caused by the explosion at #Eskom #Medupi Unit 4 last night: pic.twitter.com/smEVoVMAAn

— Chris Yelland (@chrisyelland) August 9, 2021

According to Eskom’s statement, “The incident occurred during the activity to displace hydrogen with carbon dioxide and air respectively, for the purposes of finding an external leak.”

A preliminary investigation has shown that “air was introduced into the generator at a point where hydrogen was still present…which ignited and resulted in the explosion,” the statement continues.

The statement goes on to read that there appears to have been a deviation from the normal procedure of this task and so has placed those responsible under precautionary suspension.

Fortunately there were no casualties or injuries sustained to any on-site personal.

More Eskom woes

But it doesn’t stop there, unit 4 was not the only generation unit affected, the adjacent unit 5 was tripped during the explosion. All this occurred just a few days after Eskom reported the project had been ‘completed’ following the last generation unit achieving commercial operation.

That depends on how you define ‘completed’. Some could argue that ‘completed’ might be a little inaccurate, ‘not at all completed’ might be a better descriptor. Chris Yelland, speaking to Bruce Whitfield on 702., details some of the shortfalls with Medupi after its ‘completion’.

Putting aside the fact that the power plant’s cost to completion is running at R240 billion, three times the initial cost of R80 billion some 14 years ago, it is also producing 25% less power than it was designed to do, according to Yelland.

Yet another problem is that Medupi does not meet minimum environmental standards and is currently producing copious amounts of Sulphur Dioxide (SO2), all of which are being pumped into our air. To prevent poisoning our air, SO2 scrubbers need to be installed but, according to Yelland, that equipment has not even been ordered yet. When it is eventually ordered it will cost another R45 billion and will not be completed before 2030.

But sure, let’s say it’s completed.