ESKOM South Africa

Founded in 1923, state-owned Eskom generates, transports and distributes approximately 95% of South Africa's electricity. That's a huge 60% of the total electricity consumed on the African continent. Another big beast of energy production, Eskom is the world's eleventh-largest power utility in terms of generating capacity and ranks ninth in terms of sales.

At the end of March 2010, Eskom owned total assets of US$ 33.1 billion. In the year 2009-2010 the company generated revenues of US$ 399.5 million, resulting in a net profit of US$ 486.7 million. The sales of Eskom amounted to 218,591 GWh, of which 205,364 GWh was sold in South Africa. Of the generated electricity of Eskom, 93.2% is generated through coal-fired power stations. In 2010, Eskom had a coal-fired generation capacity of 34,658 MW, representing 2.0% of world coal-fired generation capacity. For an overview of the coal-fired power plants of Eskom please refer to the business section of this company profile . All plans are 100% owned and based in South Africa. In addition, Eskom has several plans for new coal-fired power plants or expansions of current plants. For an overview of these projects please refer to the business section of this company profile . If all projects are realized, capacity of the company will increase with more than 11.2 GW by 2016.

One of the major projects of the company is the Medupi power station, a coal-fired power plant in Lephalale which is currently under construction. This new power plant will have six units with a total installed capacity of 4,764 MW. The first unit is scheduled to be commissioned in 2012, with the last unit scheduled for commissioning by 2015. The coal for the power station will be sourced from Exxaro Coal's Grootegeluk coal mine, which would increase production by 14.6 million tonnes a year to supply the new power station, for an investment of R 9.5 billion (US$ 1.4 billion).

Another major project is the Kusile power plant, a coal-fired power plant close to Witbank which is currently under construction. The new power plant will have six units with a total installed capacity of 4,800 MW. The first unit planned for commissioning by end June 2013, where-after the other 5 units will follow with an approximate 8 months' intervals, with the last unit planned to be commissioned end of October 2016.

Eskom is also heavily involved in Nuclear. It has two nuclear reactors at Africa's only nuclear power plant, Koeburg on South Africa's west coast, 30 kilometres north west of Cape Town. The plant provides just 5% of Eskom's electricity output.

Like all nuclear power plants, Koeberg has seen its share of incidents. In December 2005 a foreign object caused damage to one of the reactors' generators. It had been left inside by poorly trained and inadequately supervised workers.  A similar incident happened in February 2006 when one of the reactors was forced to shut down causing blackouts on the Western Cape. The then Minister of Trade and Industry blamed an organisation called the Imam Haroon Brigade. The Brigade claimed responsibility for the sabotage. Both the minister and the Brigade were guilty of storytelling: there was no sabotage and the shutdown had been caused by human error.

Despite its nuclear problems, Eskom wants to double its nuclear generation capacity and did make plans for new reactors. The plans were abandoned in 2008 however when they proved far too expensive at a massive $12 billion. Despite this setback, nuclear power is still the long-term goal for Eskom.

Eskom is wholly owned by the South African government.