More power outages hit the country
JOBURG - South Africa has been plunged into darkness once again following another round of load shedding by Eskom.
Update:
Load shedding has shifted from Stage one to Stage two and is expected to continue over the weekend.
According to the power utility, the situation had arisen due to a shortage of generation plant.
“This has been exasperated by the depletion of dam levels at hydro power stations and diesel reserve at OCGT [open cycle gas turbine] plants.” said Eskom’s spokesperson Andrew Etzinger.
“Load shedding will recommence again tomorrow and Sunday at 9am in order to build up reserves for the week ahead.”
The power utility continued to urge consumers to urgently switch off geysers, air conditioners, pool pumps and all non-essential appliances throughout the day to limit the impact of rotational load shedding.
Workers were advised to switch off all lights, with the exception of security lighting, when leaving office buildings and avoid leaving on air-conditioning overnight.
“We are currently load shedding in Stage one in some areas due to high demand or urgent maintenance being performed at certain power stations,” Eskom said on its website.
According to the power utility, the forced power outages were expected to continue until 8pm tonight.
On 20 November, Eskom released a statement saying that the power system was severely constrained due to unforeseen technical problems at the power stations.
Eskom last implemented load shedding earlier this month, following the collapse of silo 20 at Majuba power station in Mpumalanga on 1 November.
The collapse of the silo, which held more than 10 000 tons of coal and affected coal supplies to all six units at the power station, resulted in widespread power cuts until 10pm on 2 November. Eskom confirmed that the collapsed silo was last inspected in September last year and showed no signs of collapse.
However, Trade union Solidarity has warned against Eskom’s continued denial regarding the actual state of its coal storage silos.
In a statement on 20 November, the union said that information recently brought to its attention suggested that the Majuba power station’s silo 30 had a visible two-metre-long crack.
However, there was currently no information regarding whether the current power outage was linked to the damaged silo at Majuba.
Eskom’s load shedding schedules for the utility’s direct customers are available on loadshedding.eskom.co.za
Municipal customers could access their load shedding schedules here
