Eskom has announced the successful addition of Kusile Power Station’s final unit, Unit 6, to the national grid. This achievement marks a crucial step toward completing one of South Africa’s largest infrastructure projects and is a key milestone in Eskom’s strategic objective of adding 2500MW of new capacity to the grid by March 2025.
Kusile Power Station will contribute a total of 4800 MW to the national grid once all units are fully operational, making it South Africa’s largest infrastructure project. Its sister project, Medupi, will see its Unit 4 return 800MW by the end of April 2025 from an extended outage following a generator stator failure and the completion of the project. Both South Africa’s new build power station projects will then be essentially completed once Kusile Unit 6 is in commercial operation.
Additionally, Kusile is the first power station in South Africa and Africa to implement Wet Flue Gas Desulphurisation (WFGD) technology, ensuring compliance with air quality standards and aligning with global best practices to reduce sulphur dioxide emissions.
“Eskom is at a critical point returning megawatts to the grid as we are currently in a constrained state. This milestone is a testament to the unwavering dedication and resilience of Eskom’s employees and contractors. Their commitment has driven us forward despite numerous challenges. As we celebrate this progress, our focus is now on ensuring that Unit 6 achieves commercial operation in the second half of 2025, further strengthening South Africa’s energy security,” said Eskom Group Executive for Generation, Bheki Nxumalo.
“Kusile Unit 6’s addition is proof that we are making continued progress in stabilising and strengthening South Africa’s electricity supply. Meeting the targets, we set in the Generation Recovery Plan and our strategic roadmap underscores our determination to deliver new capacity, enhance generation performance, support economic growth, and ultimately deliver a more sustainable energy future. We reiterate our commitment to ensuring that South Africa is in no way returning to the levels of load shedding that we experienced in 2023 and, our focus remains on delivering a more reliable, resilient, and sustainable power system for the country.” said Eskom Group Chief Executive, Dan Marokane.
Over the next six months, the unit will undergo extensive testing and optimisation before reaching commercial operation, when its 800MW capacity will be officially added to the Eskom generation fleet.
With this latest milestone, Eskom remains committed to implementing the Generation Operational Recovery Plan, strengthening governance, and future-proofing the organisation. This is to ensure energy security, growth, and long-term sustainability for the benefit of South Africa and sub-Saharan Africa.-Eskom
