Eskom announced on Tuesday that stage 2 loadshedding has been extended for the rest of the week, until Saturday 30 October 2021.
Stage 2 loadshedding to remain all week
A day after the national power supplier presented its annual ‘state of the system’, further breakdowns exposed the true extent of Eskom’s problems.
In a statement, the power utility confirmed that “due to shortage of generation capacity, stage 2 loadshedding will be implemented from 09:00 today (Tuesday) until 05.00 on Saturday.”
“While Eskom teams have successfully returned a unit each at the Kusile, Matimba and Arnot power stations during the early hours of this morning, further delays in returning other units to service have exacerbated the capacity constraints, hampering the ability to replenish the emergency generation reserves,” the statement read.
Election Day threatened by power cuts
Currently, the state-owned utility sits with breakdowns totalling 13 333MW, less than a week before South Africa heads to the polls to participate in the 2021 local government elections.
Eskom Group chief operating officer Jan Oberholzer, during his opening address at the ‘state of the system’ symposium, revealed that everything is being done to ensure that loadshedding doesn’t haunt Election Day.
Gas wind turbines will play a vital role in providing auxiliary support to the utility’s flailing coal power supply and according to Oberholzer, all measures will be taken to keep the threat of loadshedding at a minimum.
“Our distribution colleagues are working closely with the IEC to make sure that electricity will be available. Our generation, transmission and distribution colleagues will be on standby at the end of this week until after voting has taken place,” he said.
Eskom currently has 5 548MW off the grid on planned maintenance.