The 1 332MW power station was initially supposed to have become fully operational in 2013.
The synchronisation process entails the generator in the unit being electrically connected to the national power grid in such a way that its power is perfectly aligned with all the other generators to generate and deliver electricity into the country’ s power grid.
Expanding capacity
Ingula’ s Unit 4 went into commercial operation on 10 June 2016, while Units 2 and 1 were put into commercial operation on 22 and 30 August 2016, respectively. The four units are located 350m underground in the world’ s largest machine hall in mudrock.
The Ingula hydropower station forms part of Eskom’ s capacity expansion programme, along with the Kusile and Medupi coal-fired power stations, which are expected to become fully commercially operative in 2018.
The power utility has previously stressed that it remains committed to bringing new capacity online, with 9 104MW to be commissioned over the next six years.
This comes as Eskom is under increasing pressure to up its electricity generation capacity, with latest figures showing that the fundamentals of the business are not in a healthy state. The state-owned entity’ s electricity output has been falling every year for almost a decade.
A recent report released by Stats SA shows that Eskom produced and sold 171 186 gigawatt hours( GWh) of power in the nine months ended September— against 173 689GWh in the first nine months of 2015. Furthermore, the Stats SA numbers( based on Eskom data) show its production has decreased every year since 2007, when it hit 241 170GWh. For all of last year, Eskom generated 230 000GWh.
The Ingula pumped-storage project is located on the Great Escarpment geological formation in the Little Drakensberg range and straddles the border of the Free State and KwaZulu-Natal provinces.
According to Eskom, to build a pumped storage scheme requires a specific combination of factors to be just right, including the right geology, enough available water, and two sites to build dams close enough together, but with at least 400m difference in altitude.
The scheme also needs to be close to the national grid and existing infrastructure. The utility started looking for such sites in the 1980s. Initially, more than 90 potential sites were investigated, resulting in the shortlisting of three. The best site was selected north-east of Van Reenen’ s Pass, spanning the escarpment of the Little Drakensberg, and straddling the provincial boundary of the Free State and KwaZulu- Natal.
This is also the continental watershed between the Vaal River catchment, flowing into the Atlantic Ocean, and the Tugela River catchment, flowing into the Indian Ocean.
The pumped storage scheme consists of an upper and a lower dam, each capable of holding more than 20-million cubic metres networking tech news environment industry infrastructure municipalities
Water Sewage & Effluent January / February 2017 17