Load shedding reduced to stage 3 on Monday, thereafter stage 2

The princes of rolling blackouts at Eskom have announced that load shedding will be reduced to Stage 3 from 05:00 on Monday, with a further reduction to Stage 2 at 05:00 on Tuesday, where it will remain until Friday.

However, for this Sunday, 11 September, Stage 4 load shedding still remains in place until 05:00 on Monday.

Stage 2 load shedding will be implemented at 05:00 on Tuesday and is expected to continue that way until Friday.

Eskom reports ‘sufficient progress’

The predominantly powerless parastatal says sufficient progress has been made in recovering the emergency generation reserves.

“It is anticipated that the dam levels at the pumped storage schemes will be fully replenished by tomorrow (Monday 12 September) morning,” said Eskom in a statement.

“Overnight a generation unit each at Arnot and Majuba power stations returned to service.
Eleven generation units are anticipated to return to service over the next 24 hours, helping to ease the
capacity constraints.”

This includes approximately 1 300MW of capacity from the Hydro de Cahorra Bassa in Mozambique.

A generation unit each at Tutuka Power Station and at Ingula Pumped Storage Scheme was forced
offline for emergency repairs overnight.

Eskom announced it had to move the country to stage four on Saturday to replenish its emergency reserves.

The higher stage of load shedding was aimed at replenishing the emergency reserves in order to contain load shedding to lower stages in the coming week.

“A generation unit at Kendal was forced offline for emergency repairs while a unit each at Majuba, Lethabo and Camden power stations, as well as Hydro de Cahorra Bassa in Mozambique, were shut
down for critical planned maintenance in preparation for the week ahead,” said Eskom.

“Overnight a generation unit each at Kusile and Tutuka power stations returned to service.”

Eskom says it desperately needs an additional 4-5000MW to be able to meet the country’s demand for power.

Several of the country’s ageing coal-fired plants are unpredictable and prone to tripping and faults, causing frequent bouts of load shedding.

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