South Africa nuclear unit shut for maintenance, system stable: Eskom

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - One of two units at South Africa's Koeberg nuclear plant near Cape Town went offline for routine maintenance on Monday but power supply remained stable as other plants came back from repairs, state-run utility Eskom said. Eskom is battling to keep the lights on in Africa's most advanced economy but has not had to resort to controlled power cuts, which both annoys consumers and hampers growth, for more than three weeks. "Koeberg Unit 2 is scheduled to enter into a refueling and maintenance outage on Monday and is expected to return back to service mid-December," Eskom said in a statement. The utility had said in July the unit would shut down. The unit typically generates about 900 megawatts (MW) of power but Eskom spokesman Khulu Phasiwe said an additional 1,700 MW was available since last Thursday following the rebooting of stations that had also been shut for maintenance. Almost 800 MW have also been added to the grid with the opening of South Africa's first new power plant in 20 years, Unit 6 of the Medupi plant.