Load shedding to continue until Thursday, Eskom announces

Eskom is warning that the country’s power system is under severe strain and will, therefore, implement stage 2 load shedding from 4pm until 12am on Tuesday.

The shadowy rulers of rolling blackouts said the power cuts will be extended to Thursday, at the same time.

Spokesperson Sikonathi Mantshantsha said Eskom will keep the nation informed of any significant changes to the national grid.

ALSO READ: Load shedding is back, Eskom implements stage 2 power cuts from Tuesday

“The breakdowns of a generation unit each at Duvha, Kendal and Kriel power stations during the last 24 hours, as well as the delays in returning units to service at Arnot, Kusile and Tutuka power stations, have put a severe strain on the power generation system.

“During the same period, Eskom teams have returned a unit each at Arnot and Tutuka power stations to service. While a generation unit each at Kriel, Majuba and Tutuka power stations are expected to return to service over the next 24 hours, this will still be insufficient to stave off load shedding for Thursday afternoon,” Mantshantsha said.

Mantshantsha said the parastatal currently has 4 550MW on planned maintenance, while another 14 637MW of capacity is unavailable due to breakdowns.

Eskom has urged South Africans to use electricity sparingly.

The latest infliction of load shedding and underperforming power plants threaten to throw President Cyril Ramaphosa’s action plan off the rails.

Ramaphosa’s last month announced steps imminently to be taken to ease the Eskom power crisis,

The elaborate plan allows Eskom to speedily acquire more generating power by doing all the things that were previously verboten: allow large-scale private and small-scale domestic generation; bypass incapacitating local content regulations and tariffs; and employ staff according to skill, not a race. None of this is new.

What is now being called the Ramaphosa plan is no more than a tarted-up version of what Eskom, the DA and energy experts have been proposing for a decade.

ALSO READ: Ramaphosa’s plan a tarted-up version of decade-old energy ideas