Striking workers return to work at S. African major power station

More than 5,000 striking workers have returned to work at a major power station, a positive move as the country is grappling with a worsening shortage of electricity supply, authorities said on Tuesday.

The latest development "paves the way for the recovery of the past eight weeks of lost production time" at the Medupi power station in Limpopo Province, the national electricity utility Eskom said.

The workers went on an illegal strike last month to press their demand for complete bonus given to all workers, not only to senior managers, an end to retrenchments of workers, and a halt to racialized evictions of workers from their subsidized accommodation.

Last Friday, the North Gauteng High Court ruled in favour of Eskom for the eviction of all persons residing in all three of Eskom's accommodation areas around the Medupi power station, as well as interdicting the return of these employees back to the accommodation areas.

The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA), which had appealed the eviction order, was ordered to pay Eskom's legal costs.

The industrial action hampered maintenance work at Unit 6 of the Medupi station, worsening the shortage of power supply that started in November last year when the Medupi station collapsed along with another power station due to poor maintenance. South Africans have been subjected to constant rolling blackouts ever since.

After the end of the strike, Medupi Unit 6 will be progressively tested and fine-tuned until the engineers are satisfied that the systems are fully operable and reliable for final handover, Eskom said.

This is also to ensure that the unit is safe to operate, and will perform exactly as designed for the next 50 years, said the state-run parastatal.

During the peak demand periods, testing will stop and power will generated to alleviate pressure on the grid. Earlier this month the unit reached a new output level of 735MW, the utility said.

Upon completion, the Medupi power station will consist of six units of approximately 794 MW each, with a total output of 4 764MW, which is approximately 12 percent of Eskom's total installed capacity. The power station will also become the world's fourth largest coal-fired power plant, and the largest dry-cooled power station of its kind.

Also on Tuesday, Eskom announced that there is currently no load shedding as Eskom has enough generating capacity to meet the demand. However, the power system is still very constrained and vulnerable, especially during the evening peak period (5pm - 9pm) mainly due to the increased electricity demand and generating units being out of service due to maintenance.

"The electricity system remains significantly constrained for the rest of the week," Eskom said.

"This means that the risk of load shedding is very high especially during evening peak periods." Endi