Koeberg nuclear power plant
Koeberg nuclear power plant is a nuclear power station in South Africa with 2 operating units totalling 1,940 MW gross. The site has 2 units on record in total.
Units
Unit by unit
Each unit's rating, type and milestone dates as recorded by the Global Nuclear Power Tracker, with any correction we made to it. A dash or "not disclosed" means the source does not give the value.
Koeberg nuclear power plant 1
| Reactor type | Pressurised water reactor (PWR) |
|---|---|
| Model | CP1 |
| Size class | Large |
| Gross capacity | 970MW |
| Net capacity | 924MW |
| Thermal output | 2,775MWt |
| Enrichment | 3–5% U-235 |
| NSSS vendor | Framatome |
| Planned retirement | 2044planned, not actual |
| Owner | Eskom100% |
| Operator | Eskom |
| Construction start | 1 Jul 1976 |
|---|---|
| First criticality | 14 Mar 1984 |
| Grid connection | 4 Apr 1984 |
| Commercial operation | 21 Jul 1984 |
Koeberg nuclear power plant 2
| Reactor type | Pressurised water reactor (PWR) |
|---|---|
| Model | CP1 |
| Size class | Large |
| Gross capacity | 970MW |
| Net capacity | 930MW |
| Thermal output | 2,775MWt |
| Enrichment | 3–5% U-235 |
| NSSS vendor | Framatome |
| Owner | Eskom100% |
| Operator | Eskom |
| Construction start | 1 Jul 1976 |
|---|---|
| First criticality | 7 Jul 1985 |
| Grid connection | 25 Jul 1985 |
| Commercial operation | 9 Nov 1985 |
Koeberg nuclear power plant in context
Koeberg nuclear power plant is the only operating nuclear site in South Africa on record, so it holds all of the country's operating capacity, and ranks 96th of 172 operating sites worldwide by gross capacity.
Its operating units started up between 1984 and 1985; the median unit is 41.5 years old.
The 2 units with both construction and grid dates on record took 7.8 to 9.1 years (median 8.4) from construction start to grid connection; the median across all reactors connected in the 1980s is 7.3 years.
No other nuclear site with an exact position in this dataset lies within 300 km.
2 operating units are rated differently now from their design net capacities: Unit 1 +0.3% and Unit 2 +1.0%.
The tracker lists a planned retirement year, a forecast and not a decision on record, for 1 operating unit: Unit 1 (2044).
Build time by unit
| Unit | Construction start | Grid connection | Years | Fleet median, same decade |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unit 1 | 1976 | 1984 | 7.8 | 7.3 (1980s) |
| Unit 2 | 1976 | 1985 | 9.1 | 7.3 (1980s) |
How these are worked out: ranks use gross operating capacity; ages count from the start-up year on record, as on the age page; build times run from construction start to grid connection, as on the build-times page; ratings are the tracker's net and design net capacity, as on the uprates page. Distances are straight-line between exact positions, so a site with only an approximate position gets none. A unit missing a date or a rating is left out of the figure that needs it.
Earthquakes nearby
Loading the latest USGS check…
| Time (UTC) | Mag | Depth | Epicentre | Distance |
|---|
Magnitude 4.0 and above within 200 km of Koeberg nuclear power plant's listed coordinates, past 30 days. This is distance, not shaking: it says nothing about damage or any change in operation. Every plant.
| Location | Western Cape, South Africa |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | -33.6746, 18.4321 |
| Elevation | about 15 mabove sea level |
| Setting | On the sea coast, 1.1 km from the water |
| Region | Sub-Saharan Africa |
| Units by status | Operating: 2 |
Elevation is read at the listed coordinates from a 30 m terrain model (SRTM 30 m). Two independent models differ by a median of 6 m across our plants and by up to about 40 m on steep or coastal ground, and a point on a shoreline can read as sea level. Distance to the water is measured to a generalised 1:10 million coastline, so a few kilometres or less is not resolved. This is context, not a design-basis or flood-risk figure.
| Owners | Eskom |
|---|---|
| Operators | Eskom |
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Sources
- Global Nuclear Power Tracker, Global Energy Monitor, August 2026 release , CC BY 4.0 · retrieved 2026-09-06
- GEM.wiki entry (further reading) , CC BY-SA 4.0, linked, not quoted
How these sources are used, including the corrections applied on top of them and what is deliberately left blank · download the underlying data