The South African state-owned power utility Eskom has announced the successful grid connection of the Unit 5 of the Kusile power plant with a total capacity of 800 MW. The new unit had been synchronised for the first time on 31 December 2023, and after supplying electricity intermittently for 6 months, has come into commercial operation, increasing Kusile power plant’s total output to 4,000 MW.
The Kusile power plant is located in Mpumalanga (South Africa). Consisting of six units with a combined capacity of 4,800 MW, it is expected to become South Africa’s largest construction project and the world’s fourth largest coal plant. Eskom expects to add a total of 2,500 MW of new capacity (including the 800 MW of Kusile’s Unit 5) to the grid before the end of 2024, with Kusile’s Unit 6 being scheduled to be connected in November 2024.
At the end of 2023, South Africa had a total installed capacity of 65 GW, of which 73% correspond to coal.
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