On Friday,Eskom confirmed that nine employees were involved in an incident at Matla Power Station on Thursday night and sustained burn injuries.
Matla Power Station is a coal-fired power station,situated near Kriel on the Mpumalanga province,approximately 200km from Johannesburg.
The power utility statement said Eskom can confirm that preliminary investigations indicate the rupture of a high-pressure steam steel pipe above the Unit 6 transformer caused yesterday's incident.The incident resulted in a loud bang and loss of power supply to the Unit 6 area.Significant amounts of dust,combined with the loss of power,prevented a fuller assessment until the first light this morning.Technical teams remain on-site,assessing the extent of the damage,the scope of work,and the time required for repairs and restoration.At this stage,there is no evidence of sabotage.
Yesterday,the Minister of Electricity and Energy,Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa together with Eskom's Executive Committee and Board staff visited Matla Power Station,and they met with the power station leadership team and employees,and also visited employees that were injured.
Eskom revealed that as a result of the steam leak from the damaged pipe,nine employees sustained burn injuries.One is in critical condition,and two are in semi-critical condition,but all remain stable.Six employees received less serious injuries,with two already discharged from the hospital.Additionally,eight members of the work team were uninjured and sent home.They,along with the next of kin of the injured and the Matla Power Station staff,received counselling and support at the start of shifts.
Eskom has reached a milestone of more than 260 days of loadshedding suspension,and during August report the power utility predicted that this summer will be loadshedding-free until March 2025.
Eskom added that as a precautionary measure,Unit 5 was taken offline following the incident to ensure the safety of all employees on-site.This unit was due to be shut down for planned maintenance on Monday,16 December 2024.This planned maintenance has now been brought forward to Saturday,14 December 2024.
"Our emergency plans were activated accordingly and today the next steps in this plan involve ensuring the injured and their families continue to receive the support and care they need,as well as all our employees at Matla,"said Eskom Group Executive for Generation,Bheki Nxumalo.
"We now begin a disciplined investigation and the painstaking work required to develop a thorough,disciplined understanding of the incident that will lead us to be able to plan when the unit can be returned to service,"concluded Nxumalo.
The Eskom CEO is satisfied with the performance of Matla Power Station over past few months and is confident that loadshedding will be unavailable if things goes according plan.
"Matla is one of the six power stations we prioritised in the Generation Recovery Plan to end loadshedding and over the past 18 months the employees have delivered an exceptional performance,achieving an Energy Availability Factor(EAF) of 67.12%,"said Eskom Group Chief Executive,Dan Marokane.
"Based on the structural improvements in the generation performance of the coal fired fleet,week by week Eskom is increasingly able to absorb shocks to the system,even though the generation capacity remains tight.The base case scenario for the summer outlook indicates that there will be no loadshedding if unplanned outages at 13 000MW or below and our year-to-date average unplanned outages are at 11 875MW,"concluded Marokane.