Date: 17/08/2006
Source: Department of Public Enterprise
Title: Erwin: Damaged Koeberg Unit
Statement by Minister of Public Enterprises Alec Erwin to parliament on the damaged Koeberg unit in December 2005
The events at Koeberg and consequently in the Western Cape as a whole have been of great public interest. This is very understandable given the importance of reliable electricity supply in our daily lives. Much has happened over the last seven months or so and we have all learnt a great deal from the events. The common bolt has become a public celebrity and this Minister for one has come to regard that self-same common bolt with a degree of caution. The coincidence of the incident and a local government election of 2006 did little to make matters easy.
On 14 March 2006 at a presentation to a joint meeting of the Energy, Public Enterprises and Science and Technology Portfolio Committees I made a commitment to make a statement to Parliament on the investigations into the incident. Today is the occasion for me to make such a statement on the matter.
However, before I start let me set out what can and cannot be said in such a statement. Firstly, I shall not comment on individual persons who may have been the subject of any investigation. To do so in the absence of any formal charge laid against them would be an absolutely unacceptable action. Secondly, I will not comment on employees who may be subject to any internal procedures in the company for the same reasons. Thirdly I will not disclose information that may have operational and security implications for Koeberg or the transmission system. Finally this statement deals with the damage to the Unit One generator and not the wider position of the electricity supply in the Western Cape or the recently released Nuclear Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA) Report which does not relate to this specific incident at Koeberg.
Having said this I am entirely satisfied that exhaustive investigation has been undertaken into all aspects of the relevant incidents and that every possible lesson we can glean from the events has been extracted and remedies applied where necessary. Essentially three investigations have taken place, one was by the police and the security services into the possibility of this being a deliberate act, or some form of more organised action of sabotage; the second was by Eskom itself in accordance with its well developed procedures and the third was that required of the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA). The Nuclear Energy Regulator has at all times been involved in the monitoring of re-commissioning of units. I should however stress that all the incidents referred to occurred outside the nuclear core and there was no impact on the safety of the Koeberg reactor core.
Let me also clarify that the NERSA Report that is referred to in the media deals with a series of events related to the Grid and not to the operation of Unit one. What I am dealing with today is the failure of the generator in Unit one. Eskom's comments on the NERSA Report are available to those interested and I as Minister will allow the interaction between Eskom and NERSA to continue as I do not see it as appropriate for me to comment on this matter in the press. I will also deal with the issues in the appropriate manner that accord with the standing of the Regulator and its mandate, which I entirely support.
All the studies mentioned above were completed some weeks back but as we had undertaken to do, we waited for the opportunity to address Parliament. However, where action had to be taken this was done with immediate effect.
Today I will deal with the investigation around the possibility of deliberate action. Later today Eskom will release a summary of its findings and NERSA has already released its Report.
The Sequence of events
Let us begin by reminding ourselves of the sequence of events. On 25 December 2005 the No one Unit at Koeberg tripped. This was followed by a number of outages and load shedding operations in the following weeks and months. A particularly serious and inopportune event occurred on 27 February 2006. Being the day before the Local Government Elections this attracted immense public interest and Minister Lindiwe Hendricks and I addressed a press conference in Pretoria.
During this time strenuous efforts were made to secure the supply of a spare rotor, which, thanks to government-to-government co-operation with France, was successful and the rotor arrived aboard the SAS Drakensberg in Cape Town on 5 April 2006.
On 3 March 2006 Eskom announced a recovery programme and the Energy Risk Management Committee under the leadership of Premier Ebrahim Rasool and MEC Tasneem Essop brought together the levels of government, organised business and agriculture, other civil society organisations and Eskom. It was the work of this Committee that then proceeded to transform the situation and eventually was able to minimise the impact of the occurrences at Koeberg, particularly in the middle of winter 2006.
On 17 May 2006 Unit one was reconnected to the National Grid, going into full output on 21 May 2006 and on 24 July Unit two completed its refuelling process.
The cause of the damage in the generator
This question has caused massive public interest. Of as much interest has been whether I said that this was an act of sabotage. I did not say this and all attempts I made to our erudite media to say what I did say merely got me into deeper linguistic difficulties. Why I deliberately did not say it was sabotage will be evident as we progress with this statement.
The actual events are clear and now very well understood. When the generator was opened up a bolt was found in it. This bolt should not have been there, it was of a type that was used outside and not inside the generator and the Clean Conditions Controls had been implemented they but had clearly not prevented it being within the generator. This was an obvious cause of concern.
The CEO of Eskom immediately alerted me to these findings and on the basis of initial information from Eskom security we authorised a full Eskom security investigation and I requested Minister Kasrils to initiate an investigation by our security agencies. The South African Police Services (SAPS), working with the Eskom security were a full part of the investigation.
At an early stage the existence of some discontent on the part of certain employees who were involved in the refuelling operation was identified and thoroughly investigated. Immediately prior to the major outage on 27 February there were a number of unauthorised communications from Eskom employees to outside parties. These two factors required particular attention. This prima facie information that could have provided a motive was a matter of concern for some weeks into the investigation. A claim by some group that they were responsible was, however, quickly refuted by the evidence at hand.
Given the severity of the outage on 27 February the Minister of Mineral and Energy and I held a press conference the following day to set out the facts of the outage. The prime focus of the media understandably focussed on the sensational aspect of whether this was sabotage and it was implied that the Ministers were alleging this to avoid electoral problems the following day. Let me assure this House that the primary and sole focus of our actions was to ensure that we dealt with a major energy problem. Attempting to score political points in such a situation is a futile exercise.
It also became evident that there was another magnetic substance or substances associated with the bolt that may in fact have been more damaging. This too had to be exhaustively analysed. The Eskom investigation has been thorough in examining records.
Summary
With regard to the damage to the generator I therefore wish to state the following on the basis of the investigations and all the information available to me: There is no evidence of any organised group of any sort being the agent of an act of sabotage at Koeberg. The word sabotage generally conveys such organised action by a group and our initial concern was to eliminate such a serious possibility. It was also why I did not use the word sabotage as we had to verify the existence or otherwise of a group before any such word was appropriate. The non-existence of any such group has now been conclusively established.
We are unable to conclusively establish whether the presence of the bolt and other foreign substance was a deliberate act despite prima facie indications. Accordingly we share the view of the Eskom CEO that we have to ascribe this to human error.
What was detected post facto were operational weaknesses in the Clean Conditions Controls applied at that time. These previously used procedures have been amended for all future operations. That no employees in Koeberg are the subject of suspicion and that both the Minister of Intelligence and I see no benefit in continuing the investigation as we believe it has exhausted all possibilities available to the investigators. The Eskom investigation reaches the same conclusion.
Any breach of procedure by Eskom employees is being dealt with by internal disciplinary procedures and accordingly I will make no comment on these. A wide range of more specific and technical matters is dealt with in the other two reports referred to. Eskom acknowledges weakness and inadequacies in the implementation of procedures that the incidents have shown up and NERSA makes certain findings in relation to the impact on the Grid. As I have indicated where action has to be taken on the basis of these reports or findings, Eskom is dealing with these matters.
Members wishing to obtain more detailed information on the Eskom report should access the Department of Public Enterprise (DPE) and Eskom web pages.
Conclusion
All accidents are a problem, the more so if investigation shows that they could have been relatively easily prevented. However, I am satisfied in my mind that the investigations show that the events at Koeberg could not have been foreseen or easily prevented. Fault cannot be easily attributed to one or more persons. What has emerged is that procedures will have to be further refined to try and address even the unusual configuration of events that did occur. Eskom has a proud record of safety and has already changed procedures to attain even higher levels of such safety.
I am also satisfied that our concerns at the outset were justified but accept that the investigations have established the position as far as we can and that the matter should not be taken further other than indicated here where remedial actions are being taken. In addition we have reassessed the long term supply security of the Western Cape and will strengthen that security in the coming years. One very stark lesson we have learnt is that by serious cooperation between all parties we can achieve very real savings in electricity demand. This lesson has to be built on.
The damage that unreliable electricity can do to our economy has been amply demonstrated. Eskom's ability to provide a secure electricity supply in the future has been enhanced by these unfortunate events.
I would like to end by thanking all those in the Western Cape that endured hardship for the way that they pulled together to minimise the damage after the initial period, this was an amazing achievement. My thanks to Premier Rasool and his Provincial Government for their massive effort and cooperation and to the City of Cape Town and RED 1 for the same hard work. Finally thanks to the Board and all in Eskom for rallying together behind a very visible and tireless CEO Thulani Gcabashe as the organisation grappled with a real crisis.
Issued by: Department of Public Enterprise
17 August 2006
Source: Department of Public Enterprise
Title: Erwin: Damaged Koeberg Unit
Statement by Minister of Public Enterprises Alec Erwin to parliament on the damaged Koeberg unit in December 2005
The events at Koeberg and consequently in the Western Cape as a whole have been of great public interest. This is very understandable given the importance of reliable electricity supply in our daily lives. Much has happened over the last seven months or so and we have all learnt a great deal from the events. The common bolt has become a public celebrity and this Minister for one has come to regard that self-same common bolt with a degree of caution. The coincidence of the incident and a local government election of 2006 did little to make matters easy.
On 14 March 2006 at a presentation to a joint meeting of the Energy, Public Enterprises and Science and Technology Portfolio Committees I made a commitment to make a statement to Parliament on the investigations into the incident. Today is the occasion for me to make such a statement on the matter.
However, before I start let me set out what can and cannot be said in such a statement. Firstly, I shall not comment on individual persons who may have been the subject of any investigation. To do so in the absence of any formal charge laid against them would be an absolutely unacceptable action. Secondly, I will not comment on employees who may be subject to any internal procedures in the company for the same reasons. Thirdly I will not disclose information that may have operational and security implications for Koeberg or the transmission system. Finally this statement deals with the damage to the Unit One generator and not the wider position of the electricity supply in the Western Cape or the recently released Nuclear Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA) Report which does not relate to this specific incident at Koeberg.
Having said this I am entirely satisfied that exhaustive investigation has been undertaken into all aspects of the relevant incidents and that every possible lesson we can glean from the events has been extracted and remedies applied where necessary. Essentially three investigations have taken place, one was by the police and the security services into the possibility of this being a deliberate act, or some form of more organised action of sabotage; the second was by Eskom itself in accordance with its well developed procedures and the third was that required of the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA). The Nuclear Energy Regulator has at all times been involved in the monitoring of re-commissioning of units. I should however stress that all the incidents referred to occurred outside the nuclear core and there was no impact on the safety of the Koeberg reactor core.
Let me also clarify that the NERSA Report that is referred to in the media deals with a series of events related to the Grid and not to the operation of Unit one. What I am dealing with today is the failure of the generator in Unit one. Eskom's comments on the NERSA Report are available to those interested and I as Minister will allow the interaction between Eskom and NERSA to continue as I do not see it as appropriate for me to comment on this matter in the press. I will also deal with the issues in the appropriate manner that accord with the standing of the Regulator and its mandate, which I entirely support.
All the studies mentioned above were completed some weeks back but as we had undertaken to do, we waited for the opportunity to address Parliament. However, where action had to be taken this was done with immediate effect.
Today I will deal with the investigation around the possibility of deliberate action. Later today Eskom will release a summary of its findings and NERSA has already released its Report.
The Sequence of events
Let us begin by reminding ourselves of the sequence of events. On 25 December 2005 the No one Unit at Koeberg tripped. This was followed by a number of outages and load shedding operations in the following weeks and months. A particularly serious and inopportune event occurred on 27 February 2006. Being the day before the Local Government Elections this attracted immense public interest and Minister Lindiwe Hendricks and I addressed a press conference in Pretoria.
During this time strenuous efforts were made to secure the supply of a spare rotor, which, thanks to government-to-government co-operation with France, was successful and the rotor arrived aboard the SAS Drakensberg in Cape Town on 5 April 2006.
On 3 March 2006 Eskom announced a recovery programme and the Energy Risk Management Committee under the leadership of Premier Ebrahim Rasool and MEC Tasneem Essop brought together the levels of government, organised business and agriculture, other civil society organisations and Eskom. It was the work of this Committee that then proceeded to transform the situation and eventually was able to minimise the impact of the occurrences at Koeberg, particularly in the middle of winter 2006.
On 17 May 2006 Unit one was reconnected to the National Grid, going into full output on 21 May 2006 and on 24 July Unit two completed its refuelling process.
The cause of the damage in the generator
This question has caused massive public interest. Of as much interest has been whether I said that this was an act of sabotage. I did not say this and all attempts I made to our erudite media to say what I did say merely got me into deeper linguistic difficulties. Why I deliberately did not say it was sabotage will be evident as we progress with this statement.
The actual events are clear and now very well understood. When the generator was opened up a bolt was found in it. This bolt should not have been there, it was of a type that was used outside and not inside the generator and the Clean Conditions Controls had been implemented they but had clearly not prevented it being within the generator. This was an obvious cause of concern.
The CEO of Eskom immediately alerted me to these findings and on the basis of initial information from Eskom security we authorised a full Eskom security investigation and I requested Minister Kasrils to initiate an investigation by our security agencies. The South African Police Services (SAPS), working with the Eskom security were a full part of the investigation.
At an early stage the existence of some discontent on the part of certain employees who were involved in the refuelling operation was identified and thoroughly investigated. Immediately prior to the major outage on 27 February there were a number of unauthorised communications from Eskom employees to outside parties. These two factors required particular attention. This prima facie information that could have provided a motive was a matter of concern for some weeks into the investigation. A claim by some group that they were responsible was, however, quickly refuted by the evidence at hand.
Given the severity of the outage on 27 February the Minister of Mineral and Energy and I held a press conference the following day to set out the facts of the outage. The prime focus of the media understandably focussed on the sensational aspect of whether this was sabotage and it was implied that the Ministers were alleging this to avoid electoral problems the following day. Let me assure this House that the primary and sole focus of our actions was to ensure that we dealt with a major energy problem. Attempting to score political points in such a situation is a futile exercise.
It also became evident that there was another magnetic substance or substances associated with the bolt that may in fact have been more damaging. This too had to be exhaustively analysed. The Eskom investigation has been thorough in examining records.
Summary
With regard to the damage to the generator I therefore wish to state the following on the basis of the investigations and all the information available to me: There is no evidence of any organised group of any sort being the agent of an act of sabotage at Koeberg. The word sabotage generally conveys such organised action by a group and our initial concern was to eliminate such a serious possibility. It was also why I did not use the word sabotage as we had to verify the existence or otherwise of a group before any such word was appropriate. The non-existence of any such group has now been conclusively established.
We are unable to conclusively establish whether the presence of the bolt and other foreign substance was a deliberate act despite prima facie indications. Accordingly we share the view of the Eskom CEO that we have to ascribe this to human error.
What was detected post facto were operational weaknesses in the Clean Conditions Controls applied at that time. These previously used procedures have been amended for all future operations. That no employees in Koeberg are the subject of suspicion and that both the Minister of Intelligence and I see no benefit in continuing the investigation as we believe it has exhausted all possibilities available to the investigators. The Eskom investigation reaches the same conclusion.
Any breach of procedure by Eskom employees is being dealt with by internal disciplinary procedures and accordingly I will make no comment on these. A wide range of more specific and technical matters is dealt with in the other two reports referred to. Eskom acknowledges weakness and inadequacies in the implementation of procedures that the incidents have shown up and NERSA makes certain findings in relation to the impact on the Grid. As I have indicated where action has to be taken on the basis of these reports or findings, Eskom is dealing with these matters.
Members wishing to obtain more detailed information on the Eskom report should access the Department of Public Enterprise (DPE) and Eskom web pages.
Conclusion
All accidents are a problem, the more so if investigation shows that they could have been relatively easily prevented. However, I am satisfied in my mind that the investigations show that the events at Koeberg could not have been foreseen or easily prevented. Fault cannot be easily attributed to one or more persons. What has emerged is that procedures will have to be further refined to try and address even the unusual configuration of events that did occur. Eskom has a proud record of safety and has already changed procedures to attain even higher levels of such safety.
I am also satisfied that our concerns at the outset were justified but accept that the investigations have established the position as far as we can and that the matter should not be taken further other than indicated here where remedial actions are being taken. In addition we have reassessed the long term supply security of the Western Cape and will strengthen that security in the coming years. One very stark lesson we have learnt is that by serious cooperation between all parties we can achieve very real savings in electricity demand. This lesson has to be built on.
The damage that unreliable electricity can do to our economy has been amply demonstrated. Eskom's ability to provide a secure electricity supply in the future has been enhanced by these unfortunate events.
I would like to end by thanking all those in the Western Cape that endured hardship for the way that they pulled together to minimise the damage after the initial period, this was an amazing achievement. My thanks to Premier Rasool and his Provincial Government for their massive effort and cooperation and to the City of Cape Town and RED 1 for the same hard work. Finally thanks to the Board and all in Eskom for rallying together behind a very visible and tireless CEO Thulani Gcabashe as the organisation grappled with a real crisis.
Issued by: Department of Public Enterprise
17 August 2006
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