Stage 3 load shedding implemented for the weekend

Stage 3 load shedding will be in effect throughout the weekend. Eskom made the announcement on Friday afternoon, saying it will last until 5a.m on Monday.

PICTURE: Pixabay

The embattled parastatal said the latest bout of rolling power cuts comes after a loss of 2700MW in the past 14 hours. This includes Koeberg Unit 2, which was taken offline after being brought back on Wednesday, and two Kusile Units whose coal operations went sub-optimal following adverse weather in the area.

‘’Higher levels of planned maintenance outages, aimed at winter preparation and meeting regulatory and environmental licensing requirements are still underway. The constrained capacity resulted in the increased reliance on emergency reserves during this week, which makes it necessary to focus on replenishing these critical resources during the weekend in preparation for the business week,’’ said daphne mokwena, Eskom spokesperson.

‘’Eskom is focused on deploying extra engineering resources to expedite the repair of units currently offline. It is anticipated that 6200MW will be restored to service by Monday’s evening peak. The events that triggered Stage 3 loadshedding occurred while the system was already under strain,’’ she added.

Eskom assured South Africans that it will not return to the levels of loadshedding that we experienced in 2023.

‘’Two years into delivering the generation recovery plan, that will bring an end loadshedding, we are at a challenging time and the full force of our highly skilled engineering resources are deployed and focussed,” said Bheki Nxumalo, Eskom’s Group Executive Generation.

“We have had some delays in returning units that previously tripped back to the grid, as well as to the return of three units that have been on longer-term outage that will bring back 2500MW to the grid, which will happen over the coming weeks,” he added.

“Loadshedding is a painful reminder of the past and situations such as this drive our resolve to double down and stay the course to end loadshedding. We again apologise to the nation for this temporary setback.

Meanwhile, the City of Cape Town said its customers will experience various stages of load shedding.

 

Done By: Mitchum George