South Africa says Kusile coal plant to revive capacity this year

South Africa said its state-owned power utility will add 2,400 megawatts of generating capacity to the country’s strained electricity grid before the end of the year.

That extra capacity will come as Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd. restarts three units at Kusile, one of its newer coal-fired power stations, Minister of Electricity Kgosientsho Ramokgopa told reporters at a briefing on Sunday. A fifth unit will be commissioned from December, eventually bringing another 800 megawatts online.

South Africa is implementing record power cuts to prevent a complete collapse of the grid as Eskom struggles to meet demand from its old and poorly maintained coal-fired plants. The government has vowed to end the outages, with President Cyril Ramaphosa appointing an electricity minister to drive its response to the crisis.

The Kusile units are returning to operations after being granted exemptions relating to sulfur-dioxide emissions until December 2024.

(By Loni Prinsloo)