22 Dec 2014

Government wants the four Fluidized Bed Heat Exchangers (FBHE) at Morupule B power station to be redesigned or rebuilt.

This emerged  during a tour of the plant that the Minister of Minerals, Energy and Water Resources, Mr Kitso Mokaila, undertook on Saturday. The process which might take about 2-3 years, is expected to cost about P2 billion.

Minister Mokaila said in the meantime there should be short term measures to keep the power station running. Meanwhile, the Saturday tour preceeded a meeting held with the plant contractor, China National Electric Equipment Corporation (CNEEC) on December 22.

Accompanying the minister during the tour were CNEEC president, Mr Chunsheng Jin, Chinese ambassador as well as government and BPC officials. The tour covered areas of the plant where there are defects including the ash cooler system which experiences clogging and blockage.

Minister Mokaila also visited the Fluidized Bed Heat Exchanger (FBHE) which had some leaking defects as well as the air duct. It emerged during the tour that tagging and labelling process was still behind given  that they still used Chinese instead of the KKS labelling on the plant.

In an interview after the tour, the minister said a decision was taken during their 9th working group meeting to engage independent experts to establish why the plant experienced repeated defects.

STEAG Energy Services was engaged to do gap analysis, while Babcock & Wilcox Company (B&W) did root cause analysis. Thus, to establish why there was noise and vibration of tubes besides fly ash and water mixing.

Mr Mokaile said yesterday’s meeting between government, BPC and Morupule B contractor (CNEEC), was to look into both (gap analysis and root cause analysis) findings and map the way forward on how to remedy persisting defects at the power plant.

He said they invited CNEEC president to the tour so that all parties could appreciate what was on the ground. He said the contractor should bear the costs of rectifying the defects.

However, the minister was not able to disclose costs of engaging experts regarding latter investigations or analysis. Concerning the output of the power station, the minister said currently only units two and three were on but were not at full capacity.

Unit Three produces 100 mega-watts while Two produces 80 mega-watts. Mr Mokaila added that the mini stations at Matshelagabedi and Orapa were abetting the situation while the deficit was imported. For his part, CNEEC president admitted there was a long list of defects but was hopeful that his company would speed up the process to correct them and would bear the costs.

He cited defects such as sporadic leaking of FBHE in the same areas. The company president who said some work needed the shutting down of the plant but ti was sometimes difficult since they did not operate of the plant.