Arnot Power Station in

Mpumalanga Mpumalanga () is a province of South Africa. The name means "East", or literally "The Place Where the Sun Rises" in the Swazi, Xhosa, Ndebele and Zulu languages. Mpumalanga lies in eastern South Africa, bordering Eswatini and Mozambique. It ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...

, is a

coal-fired power plant A coal-fired power station or coal power plant is a thermal power station which burns coal to generate electricity. Worldwide, there are about 8,500 coal-fired power stations totaling over 2,000 gigawatts capacity. They generate about a th ...

operated by

Eskom Eskom Hld SOC Ltd or Eskom is a South African electricity public utility. It was established in 1923 as the Electricity Supply Commission (ESCOM) and was also known by its Afrikaans name Elektrisiteitsvoorsieningskommissie (EVKOM). Eskom repre ...

. Coal from the Arnot coal mine directly feeds the station.

History

Construction of Arnot started in 1968, this generation unit went on line in 1971 and the station was fully operational by 1975. Between 1992 and 1997 three of its units were mothballed due to Eskom's surplus generating capacity, but they were brought back online in January 1997, November 1997 and December 1998 respectively. The cooling towers were constructed using a unique convex slip-form process by the contractor

Concor Concor Holdings (Proprietary) Limited. is a South African construction and mining services company. It is active throughout Southern Africa, involved in mining, civil engineering, building and road projects. Concor returned as an independent br ...

Power generation

Power generation was originally by six 350 MW units with a total installed capacity of 2,100 MW. Turbine

Maximum Continuous Rating In electrical engineering and mechanical engineering, the power rating of equipment is the highest power input allowed to flow through particular equipment. According to the particular discipline, the term ''power'' may refer to electrical or m ...

is 35.60% Unit ratings now given as 1 x 370 MW; 1 x 390 MW; 2 x 396 MW; 2 x 400 MW for a total of 2,352 MW installed capacity and 2,232 MW nominal capacity.

Power distribution

In addition to feeding the South African grid, Arnot, along with

Camden Power Station Camden Power Station in Mpumalanga, South Africa, is a coal-fired power plant operated by Eskom. History Camden was commissioned in 1967. Between 1990 and 2006 the station was mothballed, but South Africa's energy crisis in the early 21st century ...

, also feeds the Mozal Aluminium smelter in

Mozambique Mozambique (), officially the Republic of Mozambique ( pt, Moçambique or , ; ny, Mozambiki; sw, Msumbiji; ts, Muzambhiki), is a country located in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi ...

via 400 kV transmission lines. Mozal consumes around 950 MW.

Safety

Arnot has twice been awarded NOSCAR status by the National Occupational Safety Association.

References

External links

Arnot Power Station
on the