Load shedding drops to stage 2 during day and stage 3 at night

Eskom on Thursday announced that it will reduce load shedding from stage 4 to stage 3 from 4pm to 5am until Monday morning after it received diesel from PetroSA.

The power utility also said that load shedding from 5am to 4pm will remain at stage 2.

“Since Wednesday afternoon, a generating unit each at Grootvlei, Kendal and Tutuka power stations were taken offline for repairs. Four units at the Camden Power Station have also been taken offline to repair a water leak on a line that supplies auxiliary cooling water,” Eskom said in a statement.

Repairs

A generating unit at Hendrina Power Station was returned to service and three units at Kusile Power Station are also offline due to the duct (chimney structure) failure late in October, which will remain offline for a few months while repairs to the chimney system take place.

“Unit 1 of Koeberg Nuclear Power Station will continue to generate at a reduced output over the next three weeks as the fuel is ramped down ahead of the refuelling and maintenance outage scheduled to commence during December 2022.”

Capacity

Eskom also stated that it currently has 6 000MW on planned maintenance, while another 14 160MW of capacity is unavailable due to breakdowns.

Load shedding is implemented only as a last resort in view of the shortage of generation capacity and the need to attend to breakdowns, it added.

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