Concerns rise about safety at Koeberg

Eskom remains tightlipped about the safety concerns at its Koeberg nuclear power plant where steam generators will not be replaced on time due to ongoing legal challenges to the maintenance contract.

Japan’s Westinghouse and France’s Areva are at each other’s throats after Eskom awarded the lucrative contract to the French, only to see it overturned after many challenges in the Supreme Court of Appeal on December 8. ‘Begin again’ The court has ordered Eskom to start the gruelling tendering process from scratch.

That certainly means the generators will not be replaced by deadline, which is June 2018. This is an irksome sticking point seeing as Areva won the contract on the basis of its assurances of a three-month turnaround time.

The rejected tendering process took several years to finalise. Eskom has refused to answer questions from EE Publishers on the implications of the judgment, except to say it has reached a firm decision to apply for leave to appeal the judgment at the Constitutional Court. The utility, however, did confirm that its lawyers are currently preparing the appeal papers.

So another long legal process must be indulged before any new tender process can start. “As a result, it would not only be premature but also inappropriate for Eskom to respond to the balance of your [EE Publishers] questions at this stage,” said Eskom spokesperson Khulu Phasiwe.

The programme of upgrades is intended to extend the life of South Africa’s 1 800 MW nuclear power plant beyond its current 30 years of commercial operation. Could there be any safety issues arising from delays in the Koeberg steam generator replacement project, and continued operation of the Koeberg reactors beyond the planned outage deadline of June 2018 for the replacement of the steam generators?

What is the risk of the National Nuclear Regulator of South Africa shutting down Koeberg due to safety concerns resulting from any further delays beyond June 2018 and could this impact on security of supply and load shedding in SA? These are questions Eskom is simply not prepared to answer publicly at this stage.

Fortunately the existing steam generators are considered to be in relatively good condition, allowing the nuclear power plant to run to end-of-life in 2024-25. An article in the Mail & Guardian revealed that members of the Eskom board’s tender committee had gone on a four-day “nuclear training trip” to France in December 2013 – in the middle of the tender process – organised by Areva shareholder Électricité de France