Majuba Power Station

Majuba Power Station between Volksrust and Amersfoort in Mpumalanga, South Africa, is a coal-fired power plant operated by Eskom. Majuba is Eskom's only power station that is not linked to a specific mine and it receives its coal from various sources.HistoryConstruction started in September 1983 and by April 1996 the first unit was connected to the grid. The last unit was commissioned in April 2001.Power generationMajuba has three 665 MW dry-cooled units and three 716 MW wet-cooled units with a total installed capacity of 4,110MW with a turbine Maximum Continuous Rating of 35.3% on the dry-cooled turbines and 37.7% on the wet-cooled units.Underground coal gasificationIn addition to coal, the Majuba Power Station is fired by syngas produced by underground coal gasification at the nearby Majuba demonstration facility on the Majuba coalfield. The 3000- pilot plant was commissioned in January 2007 and the first electricity was generated from the underground coal gasification gas on 31 May 2007. Produced syngas is transported from the facility to the power station by 7km pipeline with a diameter of 600mm. There is a plan to build a 1,200 MW commercial generation facility.Silo CollapseOn 1 November 2014, the plant was running under normal load when a visible crack was reported on Silo 20 by a member of the operating staff at approximately 12:30. Personnel in the area were subsequently evacuated. At 13:20, the silo collapsed and the plant's output was immediately reduced from 3600MW to 1800MW. Shortly after the output was reduced further to 600MW.