Load shedding
No power cuts today, says Eskom, as generation capacity recovers
The utility has suspended stage three load shedding and said that it had been able to adequately replenish emergency reserves.
The utility implemented stage 3 rolling blackouts from 1 pm on Wednesday and is expected to last until 6 am on Thursday.
The utility said that this was due to the loss of generation units and to replenish emergency generation reserves.
In a statement released on Tuesday, the power utility said this was necessary to preserve and replenish the emergency generation reserves and to maximise capacity available during the daytime.
South African's were saddled with stage 2 load shedding on Friday after Eskom experienced coal challenges affected by heavy rainfall at the Medupi power station.
The power utility’s spokesperson Isaac Mangena said the decision to implement the two-hour schedule was to align it with that of Eskom which has implemented stage 2 load shedding since Friday.
Eskom announced earlier today that it would be implementing stage two load shedding.
The power cuts will continue until Sunday evening.
Publis Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan has told Parliament’s Public Enterprises committee that load shedding continued to be the most difficult area to manage at power utility Eskom.
The utility suspended stage two rolling blackouts at 11pm on Monday night after returning some units to service at its ageing power plants.
The utility said the move from four-hour cuts to two hours was to address the consequences that come with longer supply interruption.
Eskom said that COVID-19 was having an impact on operations, with 48 contractors infected at the Medupi power station alone.
Eskom ramped up the rolling blackouts from stage 1 to stage 2 at 5 am, saying there was a delay in returning generation units to service.
The power utility said its systems remained constrained and vulnerable.
Eskom implemented stage two rolling blackouts on Thursday afternoon and this round of power cuts will last until Sunday night.
Eskom said that the power cuts were necessary due to to the loss of generation capacity overnight.
The utility implemented rolling blackouts on Wednesday and Thursday night to build up reserves after failing to bring some units back online following maintenance.
The outage coincided with the start of stage two load shedding, which kicked in at 10pm on Thursday night and ended at 5am on Friday morning.
The equivalent of two large power stations are out for planned maintenance, adding pressure to the system.