KiPower coal plant in South Africa was designed as a 600MW energy project to generate electricity using the Delmas coal mine in South Africa. The project stalled due to appeals by groundWork and other local groups for its environmental permits to be suspended in 2016.
The issue with the KiPower coal plant project was with its location which was outside Emalahleni in Mpumalanga. Unfortunately, this project site happened to be in a region already plagued by toxic air pollution. The ruling of North Gauteng High Court’s ruling in 2017 was also not in favor of the project. The Court confirmed that a climate-change assessment must be done before the authorization of any new coal-fired power station.
Last May, Pretoria High Court also confirmed that the environmental authorization for the KiPower coal plant project has expired. Therefore, the KiPower coal plant can’t be built since it doesn’t have valid environmental authorization at this time.
Reported in Nov 2015
Construction of coal-fired independent power plant in South Africa gets green light
The 600MW KiPower coal-fired independent power plant in South Africa has received a clean environmental bill of health from the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) in South Africa for the construction of the power plant near Delmas in Mpumalanga.
This comes after the department had initially rejected the final environmental impact assessment report for Kuyasa Mining subsidiary KiPower’s proposed plant. They indicated that there was a need for more information on the increasing impacts of the proposed power line connection and the effects it would have on Eskom’s mooted agreement with regard to the proposed connection options of the independent power producer.
The construction of a coal-fired independent power plant in South Africa will cost US $1.7bn and will be located 5km from the existing Delmas coal mine for coal sourcing and feeding into the national grid. This is expected to produce up to 2000MW in the long term.
The KiPower project will entail the construction of four 150MW circulating fluidized bed units each having a 400kv three-phase transformer and an ash disposal facility.
There will be the inclusion of an 812-m-long sorbent conveyer to transport sorbent from the rail yard onto the overland coal conveyors, which would carry the coal from the Delmas mine to the new power plant.
