Eskom ramps up load shedding to stage 5

Eskom ramped up load shedding stage 5 from 2pm on Monday.  

The parastatal said the higher stages of load shedding was due to the breakdown of five generating units and delays in returning others to service.

Eskom Crisis Communication Manager Menzi Mngomezulu said the utility would publish an update as any significant changes occur.

Breakdowns

“Due to further delays in returning generating units to service, as well as the further failure of 5 generating units today, Stage 5 load shedding will be implemented from 2pm today until 5am on Tuesday. 

Thereafter, Stage 4 load shedding will be implemented until further notice. Mngomezulu said.

Eskom has battling with generation capacity in the last few weeks amid the series of cold fronts that have swept across the country.

ALSO READ: Koeberg: Electricity minister ‘worried and extremely upset’

Power station fire

On Sunday, 22 July 2023, the utility confirmed a that a fire broke out at Grootvlei Power Station Unit 2 just before 8m 22 July 2023.

Eskom interim spokesperson Daphne Mokwena said the fire was contained and extinguished within an hour with no injuries sustained.

The unit was online and generating 175MW of electricity when it was shut down. The unit was manually shutdown following the fire incident due to a leaking fuel oil supply/return pipeline.

The fire was only confined to the feedwater regulating station and the front-firing floor as the Eskom team managed to isolate the sources of fuel preventing catastrophic damage to the unit.

Mokwena said investigations were currently underway to establish the cause of the leak as well as thenature and extent of the damage caused.

The return to service of the unit will be determined in due course. Eskom will work around the clock to ensure that the unit is returned to service as soon as possible.

Koeberg

Meanwhile, Minister of Electricity Kgosientsho Ramokgopa during a media briefing on Sunday said was ‘worried and extremely upset’ that Koeberg’s Unit 1 was still not operational after it was taken offline in December 2022 for planned maintenance, refuelling and life-extension works in preparation for its 20-year extension.

Moneyweb reported that Ramokgopa’s concern, which he repeatedly emphasised during his weekly update on the execution of the electricity crisis plan, is that a further outage slip – which he expects – will result in an overlap with the planned outage for a similar 20-year life extension project at Unit 2

This would deprive the energy-starved national grid of a total of 1 840MW, which equates to almost two stages of load shedding.

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