Majuba Power Station between Volksrust

Volksrust

Volksrust is a town in the Mpumalanga province of South Africa on the KwaZulu-Natal provincial border. The town has important beef, dairy, maize, sorghum, wool and sunflower seed industries. It was established near to where the Battle of Majuba, wherein the Transvaal won its independence back...

 and Amersfoort

Amersfoort

Amersfoort is a municipality and the second largest city of the province of Utrecht in central Netherlands. The city is growing quickly but has a well-preserved and protected medieval centre. Amersfoort is one of the largest railway junctions in the country, because of its location on two of the...

 in Mpumalanga

Mpumalanga

Mpumalanga , is a province of South Africa. The name means east or literally "the place where the sun rises" in Swazi, Xhosa, Ndebele and Zulu. Mpumalanga lies in eastern South Africa, north of KwaZulu-Natal and bordering Swaziland and Mozambique. It constitutes 6.5% of South Africa's land area...

, South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

, is a coal-fired power plant operated by Eskom

Eskom

Eskom is a South African electricity public utility, established in 1923 as the Electricity Supply Commission by the government of South Africa in terms of the Electricity Act . It was also known by its Afrikaans name Elektrisiteitsvoorsieningskommissie . The two acronyms were combined in 1986 and...

. Majuba is Eskom's only power station that is not linked to a specific mine and it receives its coal from various sources.

History

Construction 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 generation

Majuba 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

Maximum Continuous Rating

Maximum continuous rating is defined as the maximum output that a generating station is capable of producing continuously under normal conditions over a year. Under ideal conditions, the actual output could be higher than the MCR....

 of 35.3% on the dry-cooled turbines and 37.7% on the wet-cooled units.

Underground coal gasification

In addition to coal, the Majuba Power Station is fired by syngas

Syngas

Syngas is the name given to a gas mixture that contains varying amounts of carbon monoxide and hydrogen. Examples of production methods include steam reforming of natural gas or liquid hydrocarbons to produce hydrogen, the gasification of coal, biomass, and in some types of waste-to-energy...

 produced by underground coal gasification

Underground Coal Gasification

Underground coal gasification is an industrial process, which converts coal into product gas. UCG is an in-situ gasification process carried out in non-mined coal seams using injection of oxidants, and bringing the product gas to surface through production wells drilled from the surface. The...

 at the nearby Majuba demonstration facility on the Majuba coalfield. The 3000 m3/h 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 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) pipeline with a diameter of 600 millimetres (23.6 in). There is a plan to build a 1,200 MW commercial generation facility.

External links

• Majuba Power Station at Eskom
  Eskom
  Eskom is a South African electricity public utility, established in 1923 as the Electricity Supply Commission by the government of South Africa in terms of the Electricity Act . It was also known by its Afrikaans name Elektrisiteitsvoorsieningskommissie . The two acronyms were combined in 1986 and...