WATCH | Medupi assaults the senses, even without crippled unit 4

Steady streams of smoke pouring from the five active units at Eskom's Medupi power station melt into the heavy clouds of Lephalale’s moody sky.

Highlighted by golden rays fighting through the dense cover, here stands Eskom's failure-tinged dream project, conceived as the world's fourth-largest coal-fired power station.

Today the focus is on Medupi's lone smokeless generator. The explosion last year at unit 4  is robbing the station and SA of 720MW of electricity a day, or one full stage of load-shedding.

Driving under the units, visitors are confronted by a ceiling made up of countless enormous fans.

The vast ground level is a hive of activity, with contractors working on external machinery and large pipelines running into the tangled mess of steel and concrete above.

After entering unit 3, we climb a staircase flanked by signs warning of hazards. The steady beat of heavy-duty boots marching in rhythm fills the narrow concrete staircase.

Then a door opens and a wall of sound crashes out of the vast open space that lies ahead.

A large contingent of workers trickles through the checkpoint leading to unit 3. Faces turned blue by the reflection of light off a temporary roofing sheet remain expressionless as the shift begins.

Lasting damage from last August's explosion are not apparent to the untrained eye. But the din that defeated our ear protectors is dimmed by a few decibels in an area where manual labour provides the only sound.

As we peer between gaps in the scaffolding, there is little life bar the occasional employee walking about or a cleaner wielding a mop.

A quick interval of more laboured breaths and steel-toed boots slapping against sterile concrete leads us to the pinnacle of the man-made mountain.

A sea of monitors decorated with flashing lights is obscured solely by the heads of control room workers. 

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