In what has been described as an unprecedented move at Eskom’s Koeberg Nuclear Power Station, the embattled power utility has decided to axe a planned outage; a move touted as fundamental to the life extension programme at the power station, an Eskom insider — who asked to remain anonymous — told Daily Maverick.

“An unprecedented decision has been taken at Koeberg in the name of expediency: they’ve decided to kick out the upcoming outage scope… changing the nature of the outage from a maintenance outage to a refuelling outage,” the insider said.

Refuelling for Unit 1 is scheduled for December 2022, and the Unit 2 outage is expected in October 2023. Eskom confirmed to Daily Maverick that the next planned outage would be a “regular refuelling and maintenance outage, the scope of which includes the replacement of the steam generators on the unit.”

The source added that the change in plan came at the 11th hour as the December planned outage approaches. Koeberg is performing maintenance work to meet the criteria to extend the lifetime of the station beyond its 40-year span for a further 20 years.

A refuelling outage as opposed to a maintenance outage could spell disaster in the long term should the lifespan of Koeberg gain approval to operate for another 20 years. However, in the short term, the outage means fewer levels of load shedding as there will be limited power for a shorter period of time. 

A refuelling outage is a replacement of a unit’s fuel from the reactor core to guarantee future operation. The outage also allows for several maintenance and revision tasks for other equipment, alongside design modifications. During this process, about a third of the reactor equipment is extracted for the refuelling process. Meanwhile, the maintenance outage, which was attempted earlier this year, was part of the lifelong extension project that would see the plant undergo maintenance work for about five months that would allow the plant to be in good standing for the added 20 year span Koeberg is seeking.

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“If Koeberg can’t complete the outage in under 150 days, the country will face Stage 4 load shedding. However, this is a load of nonsense, as it should be clear to everyone by now, the situation in Eskom is so dire, no one station can rectify the situation. Yes, every bit counts, but a nuclear power station is not the one you want to be a maverick about,” the insider said.

Eskom in response to questions said doing a regular refuelling and maintenance outage as opposed to the planned longer outage would still allow for the steam generator to be replaced.

 A lack of maintenance to the power station’s infrastructure — which provides about 4% of the country’s energy capacity — could pose a threat to workers, the public and the environment as a result of the release of radioactive material, or from a nuclear meltdown. This would be as a result of the work meant to be done in December being pushed out for a later stage and possibly requiring intensive repair and/or maintenance at a later stage, causing potential loadshedding. 

In January 2022, Eskom carried out an outage with the intention of replacing three out of six steam generators at Unit 2. The outage, which was meant to last 155 days, carried on until September without the generators being replaced.

For the insider, the change in the outage mirrors the events that occurred during and after the tenure of former Eskom CEO and head of generation Matshela Koko. During this period, Eskom lowered its maintenance targets to ramp up operations. There were, however, increased breakdowns and lower energy generation availability after Koko’s era, resulting in high levels of load shedding.

Koeberg Alert Alliance spokesperson Peter Becker told Daily Maverick that taking any units offline at the moment should not be considered.

Said Becker: “It takes six months to replace steam generators and it took [Eskom] eight months to replace the steam generator and they didn’t even replace it. Who knows how long it takes to actually replace them… That will cause massive load shedding, and right now that is likely to be in the region of R200-billion to the economy, just from taking one unit at a time offline.”

The decision by the National Nuclear Regulator on whether Koeberg’s lifespan will be extended is expected in 2024. The refurbishment work being carried out has been said by Eskom back in 2010 to cost R20-billion. However, Daily Maverick recently reported that independent analysts had placed the figure at R300-billion.

Read more in Daily Maverick: “Independent analysts calculate ‘true cost’ of Koeberg’s refurbishment at R300bn” 

“We’ve been saying, economically it makes no sense to take Koeberg offline to do a refurbishment, to spend all this money on a risky venture. If a steam generator is dropped again that could have economically catastrophic consequences,” Becker said. DM/OBP