*3.1. South African Key Coal Power Generation Plants Overview*

South Africa has 15 key coal-powered thermal power stations. These stations are owned and operated by Eskom. Two of these stations are the new supercritical power stations, Medupi and Kusile, which are still under construction and at different stages of completion. The power stations are mostly concentrated in Mpumalanga Province, mainly due to the large availability of coal in this province. Twelve coal power stations are located in Mpumalanga, two in Limpopo Province, and one in Free State Province. Figure 4 shows the location of the South African coal-fired power stations [40]. South Africa also has one nuclear power generation station located in the Western Cape Province. This power station has an installed capacity of 1940 MW. This nuclear station and the coal-fired power stations contribute to over 80% of South Africa's installed capacity and supply the country's baseload. The PCLF and UCLF data used in this research are from these coal-fired powered stations and the nuclear power station, collected from a centralized database.
