Koeberg GM is back from suspension and good to go
● After being suspended as general manager of Koeberg power station for performance-related issues in 2021, Velaphi Ntuli is back in the hot seat. And he says he is ready for the familiar challenges that await him at his beloved Koeberg.
Ntuli, 48, was suspended after the delay in returning Koeberg’s Unit 1 to service after a planned shutdown contributed to load-shedding. At the time the country had just escalated power cuts to stage 4.
At the start of this year it was announced that Ntuli was back at Koeberg.
After he was suspended, he remained in the Eskom structures and was deployed as general manager for coal and clean technology. His career path made a sudden turn in 2023 when his employers started talking about a return to Koeberg. They were still struggling with the overrunning outage — the same issue he was suspended for.
“The outage I was fired for was not going well — it was 100 days over time,” Ntuli said this week.
Eskom spokesperson Daphne Mokwena said Ntuli’s suspension was lifted because there were no findings of an absence of performance against him.
“Returning to Koeberg was a victory, but a difficult one,” Ntuli said. “People kept saying it was a vindication, but I felt the situation should never have happened. Long before crisis time, somebody should have come and talked to me.
“My family, my friends, even walking into Koeberg the first time again in January and seeing my colleagues again. The relief on their faces I will always remember. Lots of high-fiving and smiles greeted me everywhere,” he said.
In 2021 things were quite different. “At the time, the shutdown project had been delayed for a while and was nearing the planned time to start when we realised there were still some challenges to navigate.”
During the outage, stage 4 load-shedding hit. “I get calls from Megawatt Park saying, ‘We are in stage 4 and you are not helping. It is you guys’ fault.’ I told them I knew we were in stage 4 but we were still in the outage and we were going to overrun by about 20 days.”
Then he was suspended. “I was shocked. How could I be suspended for causing load-shedding if my station was still in a planned shutdown?
“Three months after that we had the hearing and the discussions about where I was going. It was obvious the trust was lost between me, Jan [Oberholzer, then COO] and André [de Ruyter, former CEO],” Ntuli told the Sunday Times. “They wanted to redeploy me to distribution to help power station managers to improve their performances, but I did not take that job because of the lost trust.”
Ntuli shakes his head. “So I was fired for performance at Koeberg and now I must come back and help others improve their performance? So in September 2021 I went to group capital instead.”
The division runs megaprojects such as the building of Medupi and Kusile for Eskom. Ntuli was appointed general manager, looking after coal and clean technology for Eskom, Mokwena told the Sunday Times.
Ntuli has two goals for Koeberg. “Koeberg was licensed for 40 years. They started up Unit 1 in 1984 and Unit 2 in 1985. Eskom decided to extend its lifetime. Ten years ago we started working on this. Part of this was our six steam generators we needed to replace. That would give us another 20 years of operation.”
They are in the final straight. “This July our licence comes to an end. If it is not in place we must stop operating. My priorities are to get the outage done in time and to get the life extension,” Ntuli said. “We submitted to the regulator in March last year. There are two more documents we must submit. From here it is in their hands.
“I am confident all the issues on our side have been addressed. We are aiming to have the licence before the Unit 2 shutdown is complete. It is now in public participation.
“We are aiming to be fully back by September and we are working hard to make this a reality.”
Ntuli believes in safety first when it comes to nuclear operations. “I maintain that our plants in the modern nuclear world are designed first and foremost with safety in mind. There are a series of independent systems in place in every plant to back each other up.
“Let’s use the power systems to the plant as an example. Power is one of our critical elements in a nuclear plant. We must have it. So we have three totally independent power sources. If we lose external power, the 400KV generator kicks in. If we lose that, the 132KV kicks in. That is a diesel-powered generator kept off-site. Should that fail we have more generators on site. We even have backups for those. If all of these fail, we still have a steam turbine. Safety is everything in nuclear.
“Yes, there have been disasters in the past like Three Mile Island and Fukushima. But we learn from our failures. If you look at Fukushima, for instance, it was caused by a tsunami. We came away with certain learnings from that and spent a lot of money on protecting Koeberg against a similar event. Should the Cape be hit by a tsunami, Koeberg will be fine.”
Ntuli grew up in Winterveld — in the then homeland of Bophuthatswana — about 50km north of Pretoria. “It was a very informal setting. I went to schools around that area. Normal state schools, government schools.”
The man who now runs South Africa’s nuclear power plant did not have electricity growing up. “The then president of Bop [Bophuthatswana], Lucas Mangope, had electrified Mabopane and other areas around us, but Winterveld had no electricity.”
His interest in electricity started there. “At home we had a generator. My uncle was our handyman. I worked with him. I was always with him when he was fixing things. This was where my passion to fix things and my interest in electricity was born.”
His eyes twinkle. “Hai, that uncle ... There was no certificate of compliance, he just did the job and fixed it. If it lights, it lights,” Ntuli laughed. “Working with him influenced my future career path even though it differed from what my mother and stepfather wanted. They thought I should become a lawyer. A world apart from where I am now.”
In high school he was good at maths and science. “I preferred a book with lots of pictures and formulas rather than one with just text,” Ntuli said.
He applied to the University of Cape Town and Wits University and was accepted, but was stuck without a bursary.
“One of my friends then told me Spoornet, the old Transnet, was interviewing candidates for bursaries to the University of Pretoria. I did not even know about Tukkies. I went for the interview and was later accepted on a full bursary to Tuks.”
He shakes his head, lost in the past. Ntuli finished his degree in 1999 and started working at Transnet in 2000.
“That same year Eskom started looking around for fresh engineering graduates and my student adviser gave them my details. I was invited for an interview at Koeberg and shortly after that they made me an offer.”
Ntuli is excited about the government reviving its nuclear programme. “At this point we are part of a process led by the department of mineral resources & energy. My team must provide input to the [department] to ensure the specs are 100% accurate and I oversee this process.”
Ntuli and his team are part of a working committee established by the department. “On this committee you find experts from the [department of mineral resources & energy], Eskom, Necsa [the South African Nuclear Energy Corporation] and other entities.”
He believes in a nuclear future. “We need reliable baseload and cannot operate our grid on renewables alone. That is why nuclear is so important. It must form the future backbone of our system.”
We are aiming to be fully back by September and are working hard to make this a reality
Koeberg power station GM
Velaphi Ntuli, above