Voith Hydro Successfully Completes Modernization Work On South Africa's Second Largest Pumped Storage Facility

• Modernization of three generators of the Drakensberg power station under pandemic conditions successfully completed.
• Voith concept solves temperature and vibration issues.
• Underground pumped storage power plant increases quality and reliability of energy supply in the region.

Voith Hydro has modernized three generators of the Drakensberg pumped storage power plant and now successfully put them back into operation. The company received the order, including design, installation and commissioning, back in 2016. A special feature was that all works were carried out during normal plant operation of customer ESKOM.

Also special was the technical concept for the modernization, which improved the performance of the machines enormously thanks to selected measures. Now the generators in the power plant, which has been in operation since 1981, are designed for another 40 years of operation.

We were able to reduce the operating temperatures and vibrations of the machines, so that their lifetime has been significantly increased. We reacted quickly and accessed the experts at the headquarters in Heidenheim, who would originally have been on site, via remote support.

This success was mainly based on the international cooperation between the local team in Johannesburg and the engineering department at the headquarters in Germany. During the pandemic, the project schedule was temporarily challenged.