03 Mar 2014

Morupule B Power Station is running with one unit churning 90MW into the national grid, says the Minister of Minerals, Energy and Water Resources, Mr Kitso Mokaila.

Updating Parliament on Morupule B Power station project, he said the project of this magnitude was expected to have hitches. He said he once updated Parliament about the project and touched on the root cause analysis. He said the analysis was done after realising that the project continued to experience some problems.

He said through this analysis, the root cause was identified, adding that the major problem was in the boilers. Mr Mokaila, who is also MP for Borolong, said a decision was taken to deal with two units at a time as such two units were shut down to do necessary modifications which will hopefully give some reliability.

He said the four unit power plant therefore had been limping with two remaining units which had problems but had not been modified. He said the two units had unique problems that were not boiler problems like the other two.

He said the power station was running with one unit producing 90MW whilst the other one was shut down for repair. The unit was expected to be back in operation soon.

Mr Mokaila further said his ministry’s objective was to have four units, two units running and two limping by end of April which will see the nation through winter.

Regarding the total delivery of the plant, Mr Mokaila said he could not give the nation an assurance as to when the plant will be fully operational, adding “this is a machine and will continue to be repaired.”

However, he said the ministry was working round the clock to eliminate the problem one by one and had made some progress in getting stability.

Mr Mokaila said the project was expected to be completed by end of 2012 after commissioning of the last unit but that had not been the case because the plant had not performed to specifications.

He said Botswana Power Corporation had so far taken over three units, stating that within the EPC contract, units are taken over when they pass some tests. He said the take-over does not mean that the units cannot incur some problems. In addition, he stated that the defect liability period has not set in yet until a time when all units are running.

Mr Mokaila was responding to MP for Palapye’s request to update Parliament about progress on Morupule B Power Station project and when the plant is expected to be fully operational. ENDS