State-owned electricity producer Eskom has offered a sobering update on the difficulties it is having at its Medupi and Kusile coal projects, which are not only years behind schedule and significantly over budget, but are now also beset with technical defects that are resulting in a serious underperformance of the four units that have entered into commercial operation. Officially Medupi is expected to cost R145-billion to build and Kusile R161-billion. The projects are two-and-a-half times more expensive than what was initially budgeted and are well behind schedule, with the last Medupi unit expected in late 2019 or early 2020 and the last Kusile unit by mid-2022.
