Last Thursday, South African power utility company, Eskom disclosed that it is set to execute the installation of six new steam generators at its Koeberg nuclear power plant in 2021.

The state-owned company also hinted that the first generator is already in transit and expected to arrive in Cape Town later this month.

“We are on track and progressing according to plan for installation during the next unit 1 and 2 outages,” said an Eskom spokeswoman.

The acquired generators, which weigh around 366 tonnes, are being assembled in China before shipped across to South Africa and possibly would be transported on flatbed trucks to their various plants.

According to Reuters, Eskom stated that the old radioactive generators would be kept in a temporary site at Koeberg before they are being put away permanently underground “as complete and sealed units” at South Africa’s remote Vaalputs radioactive storage facility in the Northern Cape. 

For the past one month, SA which holds the reputation of Africa’s most industrialized country has been dealing with power cut issues for almost one month, Eskom has been forced to cut the electricity supply.

Leading sectors like mining and manufacturing require a consistent power supply to function and generate revenue at full capacity. However, the scheduled blackouts, also known as load shedding are of a significant threat to these domains.

During load shedding, aimed at protecting the national power grid from total collapse, South African residents and businesses are usually left without electricity for a couple of hours at a time.

Perhaps with these pending generators, the hopes of investors will be on the positive side as power is necessary for manufacturing. The sector accounts for around 14 percent of the nations’ GDP, generating about  R386 billion annually.