Medupi and Kusile, South Africa’s newest coal-fired power stations, may have a host of challenges to overcome, but they do have the biggest dry cooling in the world.
According to an Eskom source, the power utility has been focused on decreasing water usage by introducing advanced technologies into its operations.
Considering that Eskom uses 2% of the country’s fresh water it was an initiative that had to take priority considering the ongoing drought in vast areas of the region.
“The usage of water has been a concern,” he said. “We have to reduce the amount of fresh water that we use and through dry cooling we can reduce it significantly. Already we have reduced the water use from 2 ℓ/kWh to 0.14 lℓ/kWh in recent years.”
He said offgrid solutions and emerging technology were increasingly a part of the conversation at Eskom as it understood the need to move towards a cleaner fuel generation environment.
“The Integrated Resource Plan will put perspective on where we are going in the future,” he said.
-Liesl Venter
