Investigations are underway to find out the cause of the fire that tripped a unit at Kendal Power Station in Mpumalanga.
In a terse statement on Saturday morning, Eskom said all personnel on-site were evacuated safely with no injuries sustained during this unfortunate incident.
“Eskom wishes to inform the public that Kendal Power Stations Unit 1 tripped at 03:44 on 11 September 2021 due to a failure of the generator transformer,” said the statement.
The power utility said an initial investigation determined that the generator transformer at the coal-fired power station had caught fire.
“The fire damaged the cables to the main cooling water system on the west side of the power station,” said the statement.
Kendal power station consists of six 686 MW turbo-generator units.
“Unit 2 and Unit 3 experienced loss of vacuum and were shut down under controlled conditions,” added the statement.
“Further investigations will be conducted to determine the root cause of the generator transformer fire.”
Eskom said it will update the public on the developments and the extent to which this incident will impact the national electricity grid.
“Kendal Unit 1 will be returned to service during the week,” said Eskom.
