Embattled power utility Eskom announced that load shedding will be pushed to stage 3 on Tuesday (27 December), alternating between stage 2 and stage 3 until further notice.
Stage 3 load shedding will be implemented from 16:00 until 05:00, and stage 2 will be implemented from 05:00 until 16:00- this pattern will repeat until further notice.
This after On Sunday (Christmas Day) Eskom announced the suspension of load shedding followed by stage 1 load shedding on Monday.
Eskom did not provide details on why it was necessary to increase load shedding from stage 1, which it implemented after a 24-hour suspension of the power cuts on Christmas Day.
Electricity demand during the evening peak on that day was below 20,000MW, much less than the 25,000-30,000MW of typical peak demand.
It is not clear if the electricity demand had increased since that time or if further generating unit breakdowns occurred that significantly impacted the gap between capacity and demand.
South Africa is likely to sit with prolonged levels of loas shedding for the foreseeable future. On Saturday (10 December) 1,000MW was removed from the grid through Koeberg unit 1 being taken offline, and approximately 3,000MW is offline from various breakdowns at Kusile and Medupi.
According to Eskom’s outlook for the next year, it needs to keep breakdowns below 13,000MW to stave off the worst of load shedding on record, but the utility has struggled to keep outages below 16,000MW- the worst-case scenario in its plans.
Meanwhile, Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter announced his resignation on the back of the worst levels of load shedding on record. While Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan acknowledged that De Ruyter is not to blame for the load shedding, Eskom has not been able to resolve the crisis under his leadership.
Source: Business Tech, My Broadband, IOL, Eyewitness News, image from Twitter: @ECR_Newswatch