Embattled Power utility Eskom has reduced load shedding to stage 4 from Saturday morning.
This will last until 5am on Sunday, after which load shedding will be reduced to stage 2 until 5am on Monday.
Stage 2 load shedding will remain in effect until at least Monday morning at the same time.
Since Thursday morning, a generating unit each at Camden, Lethabo, Majuba and Matla power stations were taken offline for repairs and planned maintenance. In addition, the delay in returning to service a generating unit each at Arnot, Duvha, Grootvlei, Kendal, Kriel, Matimba and Dedupi power stations returned to service.
“We currently have 5,901MW on planned maintenance, while another 15,394MW of capacity is unavailable due to breakdowns,” it said.
“As previously communicated, due to the depletion of the budget to acquire diesel for the Open Cycle Gas Turbines, Eskom has been forced to strictly preserve the remaining diesel for any extreme emergency situations such as multiple, simultaneous trips of generators.
“The pumped storage dam levels also need to be replenished during this time.”
The refuelling and maintenance outage starting on Saturday morning, as well as the long-term operation project of Unit 1 of the Koeberg Nuclear Power Station, along with the chimney failure during October that has forced three generation units offline at Kusile Power Station, will further reduce available generation capacity and exacerbate the occurrence of load shedding during the next 6-12 months.
The country’s national power grid has been under severe strain this week, due to a number of breakdowns at power stations which resulted in the implementation of Stage 6 power cuts- last experienced in September.
Eskom says they will publish an update “as soon as there are any significant changes.”
Source: Eyewitness News, Business Tech, My Broadband, Times Live, image from twitter: @GeorgeHerald
