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Dec Medupi Unit 6 sync deadline at risk, as unit interval plan comes into focus

Photo by Eskom
Medupi project site
Photo by Duane Daws
Medupi project GM Roman Crookes
Photo by Duane Daws
Eskom executive for group capital Dan Marokane

25th November 2014

By: Terence Creamer
Creamer Media Editor

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Electricity utility Eskom has confirmed a likely further, albeit modest, slippage in the schedule for first synchronisation of Medupi Unit 6, which was scheduled for December 24, 2014.

The delay is the latest in several to afflict the project, which has faced numerous technical problems and labour disruptions. Originally, Eskom expected to synchronise Unit 6 in 2011, before shifting the date initially to the end of 2013 and then to the second half of 2014.

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The State-owned company is still hoping to synchronise the 794 MW unit – the first of six at the 4 764 MW Limpopo mega-project – before the end of 2014. But it has indicated that several pre-synchronisation processes are still required, which may postpone the milestone to second week of January.

Medupi project GM Roman Crookes insists that the delay will not have a material impact on the ramp-up of the unit to full commercial operations, which is still scheduled for the end of March, with handover to Eskom Generation by June.

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Nevertheless, for the sake of rebuilding credibility in the project, he and his team are interrogating ways of recovering 14 days in the Unit 6 ‘master schedule’ so as to achieve first synchronisation by December 31.

There are eight process steps from hydro-pressure testing, which was conducted in May, to first synchronisation – a process whereby the generator in the unit is electrically connected to the power grid. Following first power, it takes several months for a unit to ramp up to full and stable power.

Crookes says five of the key milestones – the hydro tests, the boiler chemical cleaning, the turbine barring, the draught group test run and first fires – have been completed, with a boiler blow-through campaign currently under way. Thereafter, pipes need to be reconnected to enable the unit to move to the next ‘turbine-steam-to-set’ milestone, which occurs just ahead of fist synchronisation.

The master schedule indicates that the processes will require more days than are left in the calendar year to complete and is suggestive of first synchronisation taking place on either January 12 or 13.

But the master schedule is being updated continuously as schedule improvements (or delays) arise and Crookes says there is a strong focus on “scavenging time” where such solutions do not compromise either the integrity of the unit or safety on site.

COST & INTERVALS

Eskom executive for group capital Dan Marokane says lessons being learned on Unit 6 will change the way subsequent units at both Medupi and the 4 800 MW Kusile project are commissioned. This he, acknowledges, will have cost implications, which are still being calculated.

Besides confirming, in 2013, a delay to the commissioning of the first Medupi unit to the second half of 2014, the budget for the coal-fired power station was also revised upwards from R91.2-billion to R105-billion, excluding interest during construction. A revised cost-to-completion figure is expected to be released before the end of the year.

“We are reviewing the business cases for both Medupi and Kusile to integrate all the lessons and risks that have emerged and to incorporate the interventions and execution-model changes to keep the project momentum,” Marokane says.

Also yet to be finalised is the commissioning intervals for the 11 other units at both Medupi and Kusile, with Marokane explaining that the plan is to first integrate the experiences gained on accelerating project progress at Medupi Unit 6 before firming up what that would mean for the interval schedule.

He dismisses suggestions that there could be as much as a two-and-a-half-year interval between the commissioning of units 6 and 5 at Medupi and indicates that it is working closely with the main contractors to assess whether Medupi Unit 5 could be synchronised 12 months after Unit 6.

“We will have a far better feel of where things are going in January,” Marokane says, adding that “school fees” have been paid on Unit 6 and those lesson need to be incorporated across the 11 subsequent units.

“Nothing is sacrosanct,” he stresses, adding that discussions are ongoing with contractors to transform the execution model so as to ensure that the intervals between units are shortened.

Current estimates are for the interval between Medupi Unit 6 and Unit 5 to be about a year, with Kusile Unit 1 being brought on simultaneously with Medupi Unit 5.

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