Cape Town - Cape Town’s Hydro Pump Station, the Steenbras plant, could get a cash injection of more than R100 million for refurbishment services covering the next few years.
The City of Cape Town’s mayoral committee for energy announced that it had recommended that the council approve the allocation of an additional R107m to its budget for the planned provision of professional services to conduct functional upgrades to the plant.
City Mayco member for energy, Beverley van Reenen, said the multi-year contract would not only enable the refurbishment of the valuable Cape Town asset, but would also work to assist the local municipality to continue shielding its customers from extreme stages of load shedding, where possible.
“It will lay the foundation for the refurbishment of the plant. This is the Cape Town difference. We continue to roll out plans to ensure we can, within the next two years, provide load shedding protection of up to four stages where feasible, while focusing on proper maintenance and investment in our infrastructure for reliable service delivery,” Van Reenen said.
The 180-megawatt Steenbras Hydro Pump Station (SHPS) consists of four turbines used to generate electricity. During peak electricity demand, it channels water from Upper Steenbras to Lower Steenbras through the turbine generator to create electricity.
The contract for the plant’s upgrades, according to Van Reenen, would be for nine years from the starting date next year on February 15.
“More importantly, all Capetonians benefit directly or indirectly from the City’s power generation management and load shedding protection as it also protects critical City infrastructure used for service provision, and protects the City’s electricity network,” Van Reenen said.
Meanwhile, electricity service provider Eskom on Wednesday announced that it would be implementing Stage 5 and 6 load shedding across the country due to the loss of four generating units, the need to replenish the emergency generation reserves and increased planned maintenance.
“Eskom said it would implement load shedding Stage 6 from 4pm yesterday until 5am today, alternating between the two stages until Friday morning.
“Eskom will publish another update should any significant changes occur,” Eskom said.