An e-mail is doing the rounds showing the damage (some would call it ‘destruction’) to Unit 4 of Eskom’s Duvha Power Station. Duvha is located approximately 15 kilometres east of Witbank in Mpumulanga.
Construction of the Duvha Power Station commenced in November 1975 and final commissioning took place in 1984. Duvha cost R1.6 billion to build, its chimneys the largest freestanding concrete structures in Africa and its mine the largest open-cast colliery in the Southern Hemisphere.
Duvha’s safety record shows that it has been awarded NOSCAR status twice by the National Occupational Safety Association (NOSA). The last award was made in March 2001.
On 8 January 2003, the Unit 2 generator exploded whilst being returned to service after a malfunction. On the the 9 February 2011 Unit 4 failed catastrophically while performing over speed testing. The units are over speed rated at 3600rpm and the last recorded speed before failure was 4250rpm.
The official statement after the 9 February 2011 failure read as follows:
Repairs to Eskom’s Duvha Power Station to Take Time
February 11, 2011 – Eskom has warned that a unit which burst into flames this week at Eskom’s Duvha Power Station during a routine test will take extensive time to repair. Eskom spokeswoman Hilary Joffe said Unit 4 of Eskom’s Duvha Power Station was “damaged last night in the course of a routine test. No one was injured but the unit is expected to take extensive time to repair,” she said.
Joffe said the other five units of the 3,600 MW Duvha power station were running normally and the national grid remains in ‘green’ status, meaning that Eskom is generating enough power to satisfy the demand in the national grid. The incident happened when the 600 MW units at Duvha had been taken off load to perform a required turbine test.
“This is a statutory test that is carried out in every power station. In the execution of the test, the protection of the unit failed, causing severe mechanical damage and starting a fire, which was brought rapidly under control by the power station’s fire team,” said Joffe.
Eskom have since launched a “technical review ” of the incident. Eskom’s divisional executive for power-generation, Thava Govender, said: “The technical review is aimed at finding the cause of the unit failure, so that we may take appropriate action to prevent similar incidents in future.” Source: Nthambeleni Gabara at BUA News agency.
According to the note attached to the circulating e-mail three layers of protection failed, Unit 4 will be shut for at least 18 months and a new unit will cost around US$100 Million according to some estimates.
$100 Million ………. Now you know why the funding to the Youth League was cut, Julius.
Before you look at the images (which are purported to be genuine) stop and consider these ‘spin doctor’ statements from the above release:
- “burst into flames” – the normal man will think fire and some melted components.
- “extensive time to repair” – again the normal man will think three months.
- “the protection of the unit failed” – a circuit breaker failed to trip?
- “technical review” – again the normal man thinks, no big sweat, no mopping up, no disaster or as Roland likes to say; “No CRISIS”
- “so that we may take appropriate action to prevent similar incidents in future” – a small cause for concern here, does this mean we are expecting other units to fail?
Methinks the fine line of being economical with the truth and lying has been overstepped here. A bit like calling the recent Japanese Tsunami; “A Big Wave”!
The fact that all the EXIF data was removed from the images below is disturbing as we cannot do a simple means test such as checking the date the images were taken to prove that they are are genuine (or as close to genuine as possible):
Alan Straton
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I get the distinct impression that the damage was not an accident, but wilful. No doubt, money will have to be spent to fix this – follow the trail…
Update to this in November 2011. See http://www.fin24.com/Companies/Industrial/Eskom-reports-600MW-electricity-shortage-20111127
Thanks for the Duvha update – very interesting.
Uneducated knuckledragging goons cannot operate and maintain a sophisticated power plant.
Not placing a time limit on BEE/AA/EE is an admission of inferiority.