Coal power plant in Gauteng, South Africa. Approximate location -25.7584, 28.1467.
CoalGautengSouth AfricasubcriticalMothballed
Pretoria West power station is a 180 MW coal power station in Gauteng, South Africa. It ranks #58 of 152 South Africa power plants by installed capacity. Commissioned in 1952, it is around 74 years old — an older, legacy facility. In context, coal supplies about 81.4% of South Africa's electricity; the national grid averages 699 gCO₂/kWh (17.8% low-carbon) (2025).
Plant data: WRI Global Power Plant Database (CC BY 4.0), id WRI1075861.
Known, modelled and calculated values are kept separate. Missing fields are shown as unavailable.
The capacity and fuel fields on this page are source-record values from the upstream open dataset. They are useful for identification and ranking, but they have not been upgraded to a 2026 registry/GEM-location verified value.
capacity: WRI GPPD; fuel: WRI GPPD
At 180 MW, Pretoria West power station is below the median coal plant in South Africa (1,180 MW). Technically it is described as subcritical. Its current lifecycle status is “Mothballed” — so it is not yet, or no longer, generating at full output. Coal plants burn pulverised coal to raise high-pressure steam for a turbine; they run as baseload but are the most carbon-intensive mainstream source and the first targeted for retirement or efficiency retrofits.
Capacity comparison computed from the WRI Global Power Plant Database; fuel-type context is general engineering background.
The #36 largest coal power plant of 37 in South Africa by capacity.
South Africa has 37 coal power plants in this dataset, together about 67,847 MW of capacity.
Coordinates -25.7584, 28.1467 from WRI Global Power Plant Database (CC BY 4.0). View on OpenStreetMap.
Pretoria West power station is a 180 MW coal power plant in Gauteng, South Africa, commissioned in 1952.
