Majuba incident exposes fragility in South African power industry


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Issue 288 - 06 Nov 2014 | 3 minute read

South Africa’s energy security remains fragile as load shedding continues to weigh on GDP – which is forecast to be little over 1% in 2014 – and generation output in late 2014 into 2015 could be further constrained by even more frequent power cuts. Margins remain dangerously fine, as was underlined when a collapsed coal silo at the 4,110MW-capacity Majuba facility – Eskom’s second largest (and youngest, commissioned in 2001) coal-fired plant – plunged much of the country into darkness on 2 November. Majuba’s generation output was halved from 3.6GW to 1.8GW, and then fell to a low of 600MW.

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