ABB wins $160m order after Alstom exit from Eskom’s Kusile plant

By Paul Burkhardt
Photo credit: mallix / Foter / CC BY-NC-ND
Photo credit: mallix / Foter / CC BY-NC-ND

(Bloomberg) — ABB Ltd., a Swiss maker of electricity-grid connections, won a $160 million order for instrumentation at Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd.’s Kusile power plant in South Africa.

ABB will supply “a complete control and instrumentation solution for the entire plant,” the Zurich-based company said Monday in a statement. That includes engineering, installation and commissioning at the 4,800-megawatt coal-fired facility.

State-owned Eskom, which generates 95 percent of South Africa’s power, said Friday that it had agreed with Alstom SA to terminate a contract for instrumentation at Kusile. Alstom will continue to work on Eskom’s 4,764-megawatt Medupi plant, which, like Kusile, has suffered years of delays.

“We do not anticipate that the switching of contracts will have an impact” on the commissioning of Kusile, Eskom said in an e-mailed response to questions. The first unit of Kusile is scheduled to be synchronized with the grid in the first half of 2017.

Eskom confirmed it received a competing bid for the plant’s instrumentation contract from Siemens AG.

–With assistance from Andre Janse van Vuuren in Johannesburg.

Visited 61 times, 1 visit(s) today