Eskom gives load-shedding update

3 years ago 1

ARTICLE AD BOX

Eskom has announced that load-shedding will reduce to stage 3 at 05:00 on Monday, 5 December 2022. It will then drop to stage 2 at 05:00 on Tuesday and remain at the same level until further notice.

South Africa is currently experiencing stage 4 load-shedding until 05:00 on Monday. The power utility attributed the higher stages to a high number of unit breakdowns and a need to replenish its emergency reserves.

“A generating unit each at Grootvlei and Matimba power stations were taken offline for repairs over the past 24 hours,” Eskom said.

“The delay in returning to service a generating unit each at Arnot and Duvha power stations has contributed to the capacity constraints.”

The power utility said it returned a generation unit at each the Kriel and Matla power stations over the same period.

Eskom has 6,392MW of generation capacity offline for maintenance and a further 16,318MW unavailable due to breakdowns.

The state-owned power utility implemented stage 4 load-shedding at short notice on Saturday, 3 December 2022.

Eskom said it was forced to increase its rotational power cuts due to the depletion of its budget to acquire diesel for its open cycle gas turbines — peaking power stations that provide rapidly dispatchable electricity.

“Eskom has been forced to strictly conserve the remainder of the fuel reserves to protect against further unplanned outages,” it said.

The utility warned that several factors, including the October chimney failure at the Kusile power station, and the long-term refuelling and refurbishment project of Koeberg’s unit 1 generator, would “significantly increase the occurrence of load shedding during the next 6 -12 months”.

Eskom’s load-shedding plan for the week may be summarised as follows: