27 Nov 2018

Minister of Mineral Resources, Green Technology and Energy Security, Mr Eric Molale says government is working round the clock to put Morupule B and A power stations into full operation.

Mr Molale, who toured both power stations on November 26, assured the nation in an interview that no load shedding would be experienced during that period.

The “600 MW coal-fired Morupule B is currently not operating at full capacity as only two of its four units are operational producing only 300 MW,” he said.

Unit four, Mr Molale said, was currently undergoing scheduled remediation for the next 12 months, whilst the third unit would return to service mid-December.

On the other hand, Morupule A power station was supposed to be re-commissioned in August but due to contractual issues with the contractor, that had failed.

He said he came to appreciate why contractors engaged on both projects had had problems with  matters surrounding contract variations and operational issues.

Minister Molale said the problem at Morupule A was disagreement on the extent of maintenance which also involved safety issues.

“We should not expose employees to unsafe working conditions, steam pipes could easily burst and burn employees and that is unacceptable so we are working on that so that this power station works in a safer environment,” he said.

With Morupule B, he said: “We have agreed with a Chinese company Cmeg that they will do remediation of the plant at their own cost and it is for that reason that I have invited the chairman of the company, which is the parent company to CNEEC, to come here next month, so that we could go blow by blow on the issues that need to be remediated and have timelines attached to it.”

Botswana Power Corporation (BPC) chief executive officer, Dr Stefan Schwarzfischer said the parastatal had already started the remediation project in which each unit of Morupule B power station would be taken out for remediation for 12 months starting December.

He said each unit would be revamped and its viability increased from 75 to 83 per cent to help stabilize power generation.   

Regarding Morupule A, Dr Schwarzfischer said all the works had been completed adding “all the units are ready and up for operation.”

Nevertheless, he said BPC and the contractor had to ensure that the plant was really up for operation and secure.

“BPC is running an additional exercise that will last for the next four months and once concluded all the safety checks especially on the high pressure then the plant would return to operation,” he said.

He also assured the nation that there would not be any load shedding in the coming years.

The BPC chief explained that load shedding occured when  the corporation could not provide the required power to the nation.

“The actual national power demand is 420 MW and to cope with the 120 MW deficit; BPC can use its emergency diesel generators at Orapa, which produce 100 MW,” Dr Schwarzfischer said.

At the same time,  it could still  use the South African power pool (Eskom) which availed BPC power whenever needed.

Regarding faults, he said BPC had put in place a fault reduction strategy and “within the last 20 months we reduced the faults by 30 per cent in Botswana”.

In addition, he said BPC increased its maintenance budget by P240 million to improve the capacities, change transformers, cables and poles so that customers did not experience faults in future. ENDS