Stage 2 load shedding to continue on Friday

Eskom announced on Friday that Stage 2 load shedding would continue for the “greater part” of the day as the entity “had a major set back” after losing “additional capacity from Medupi power station”.

“Late last night, we lost Medupi 3, 4 and 5 due to coal and ash handling issues. This is in addition to the conveyer belt that failed on Saturday 12 October at the power station. This means that the power system has deteriorated further, creating an additional shortage of about generation capacity of 1,500MW. As a result, we will regrettably maintain Stage 2 load shedding for the greater part of today,” Eskom said in a statement.

The energy utility said “in order to lessen the disruption” on matric exams, stage 1 load shedding would be implemented from 9am until 12pm “and thereafter revert to Stage 2 load shedding until 11pm”.

“We apologise unreservedly to our customers and South Africans for the short notification. We will keep South Africans informed about the status and our recovery efforts throughout this period.”

Eskom customers can check their load shedding schedules on the Eskom website (loadshedding.eskom.co.za), through the customer contact centre on 0860037566, or alternatively on an app available on the PlayStore called EskomSePush.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) has said that Eskom’s media briefing on Thursday evening regarding the rolling blackouts was nothing more than “a disastrous” publicity stunt.

The DA’s Natasha Mazzone said management at the power utility “is clearly out of its depth” to deal with load shedding “and its turnaround strategies have amounted to very little” at the expense of South Africans.

“The reality is that the public does not trust Eskom to keep the lights on, and worse, they do not trust a word Eskom has to say after it seemingly misled South Africans when it refuted the Democratic Alliance’s (DA) revelation that it had issued a warning to municipalities that power cuts were on the cards for the months of September and October,” Mazzone said in a statement on Thursday.

She said the party maintained that Eskom had known that load shedding would be implemented “and either failed or refused to come clean”.

(Compiled by Makhosandile Zulu.)

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