Ingula Pumped Storage Scheme

The Ingula Pumped Storage Scheme is currently being constructed by an Eskom and CMC Impregilo Mavundla Joint Venture in the escarpment of the Little Drakensberg range straddling the border of the KwaZulu-Natal and Free State provinces, South Africa. It is about 22 km southwest of Van Reenen. The pumped-storage hydroelectric scheme consists of an upper and a lower dam 4.6 kilometres apart and connected to a power station by tunnels. The scheme is being built at a cost of US$3.5 billion. Construction began in 2005 and the power station scheduled to begin operations in late 2015.
The pumped-storage hydroelectric plant will use water from the upper reservoir to generate electricity during the peak demand periods of the day. At night, excess power on the grid generated by conventional coal and nuclear plants is used to pump water to the upper reservoir. The upper Bedford Dam on Bedford stream, a tributary of the Wilge River, was completed in April 2011. It is a 39 m tall concrete-face rock-fill dam. It has a 22,400,000 m³ water storage capacity of which 19,200,000 m³ can be used for power generation.