Forging a new heritage at Komati Power Station
17 October 2025
Komati Power Station stands as a monument to South Africa’s industrial heritage. For over six decades, its cooling towers were a steadfast symbol of the coal that powered a nation. The role of the Komati Power station is being redefined. Instead, it initiated a more complex endeavour: building a new legacy from the foundations of the old.
While the physical repurposing of the site with renewable energy captures headlines, the true transformation is a socioeconomic one, masterminded off the main stage.
The Genesis-led consortium is playing a critical role in the task of community and worker transition. Charged with delivering Component C of the Eskom Just Energy Transition Project, our role is the human counterpart to the technical overhaul.
Our five-year mandate, now underway, is to ensure the station’s closure cultivates opportunity, not obsolescence. This involves the intricate work of reskilling a workforce, fostering small business development beyond the coal economy, and engaging communities to build climate-resilient livelihoods.
The challenge is great.
It requires moving beyond theoretical frameworks to deliver practical, sustainable alternatives for the workers and local communities whose lives were interwoven with the plant's operations. The consortium's remit is to deconstruct the single-industry dependency that defined the region and seed a diversified, resilient local economy.
This is not a task of charity but of strategic economic restructuring, where the metric of success is long-term, self-sustaining growth that is both inclusive and aligned with a greener future.
The project at Komati reflects the power of its heritage built on the foundation of resilience and empowerment to drive a successful, inclusive transition.
For more on how Eskom is preserving local heritage through historic steam locomotives, click here.
Click here for more info on the Just Energy Transition.