Koeberg Unit 1 is back on South Africa's grid
Eskom restored a unit at Africa's only nuclear power station six days after a protection system safely shut it down.
Cape Town — Unit 1 of the Koeberg nuclear power station near Cape Town is running again and synchronised to the grid, Eskom said on Thursday, SAnews reports.
What happened
The unit tripped on 16 October during testing for a planned maintenance outage on Unit 2. An electrical disturbance went beyond the limits of a protection system, which opened the unit's 400kV and 24kV breakers and shut it down. Eskom's investigation found that a conservative relay setting contributed, and said the system had done exactly what it was designed to do. There was no impact on nuclear safety.
Eskom thanked the Koeberg teams for their coordinated recovery. Unit 2 remains in planned maintenance.
Koeberg, on the Atlantic coast north of Cape Town, is the only nuclear power station on the African continent.
Source: SAnews, 22 October 2026.
