Embattled Power utility Eskom has announced that it will be moving to stage 2 load shedding from 9am on Tuesday, 8 November 2022, and will continue until further notice.
This follows further breakdowns at its power stations, along with delays in returning other units back to service.
Eskom had initially intended to implement load shedding during the evening peak and overnight to help boost reserves.
Sikhonathi Mantshanthsha, Eskom spokesperson said, the utility would keep the country informed on the load shedding schedule.
“Stage 2 load shedding will be implemented from 9am this morning until further notice. This is necessitated by a breakdown of a Duvha generating unit and the delay in returning to service another Duvha unit,” said Mantshantsha.
“Eskom will provide a further update as soon as any significant changes occur,” he said.
The utility has consistently warned that load shedding stages and schedules can change at short notice, as its generation fleet is largely unpredictable.
According to the latest data from load shedding app EskomSePush, there has been at least 2,557 hours of load shedding in 2022.
As of 05:00 on Tuesday, data from Poweralert.co.za showed national electricity demand was at 25,179MW, while only 24,807MW of generating capacity was available, not including emergency generation like open-cycle gas turbines.
The utility recently lost a substantial amount of capacity after a part of one of the flue-gas ducts at the Kusile Power Station collapsed on 23 October 2022.
Meanwhile electricity was restored to parts of Lenasia South on Monday after a four-day power outage.
The suburb had no electricity since Friday, after a fire gutted a substation plunging the entire area into darkness.
City Power confirmed that efforts to restore power on Sunday were thwarted when the breaker blew up due to vandalism that happened on the extension switching station.
Source: My Broadband, Business Tech, The Citizen, image from Twitter: @CapricornFMNews
