Tuesday, September 13, 2022

Stage 4 load shedding to last until Thursday, following loss of three generating units

Eskom has implemented Stage 4 load shedding on Tuesday morning, due to, what it says, the sudden loss of three Kendal Power Station generating units

In a statement, the ailing parastatal said that Stage 4 loadshedding will last until 5a.m on Thursday. Thereafter, it added, loadshedding will be reduced to Stage 2 until midnight on Friday.

‘’Eskom apologises for the sudden changes in the loadshedding profile and urges all South Africans to continue using electricity sparingly. In the early hours of this morning a conveyor belt feeding coal into Kendal Power Station failed,’’ said Eskom’s spokesperson, Sikonathi Mantshantsha.

‘’To conserve coal, the power output of the generators was reduced, but this required fuel oil to be used to sustain the boiler combustion. Subsequently, the fuel oil plant supplying the units experienced a failure and shut down. This resulted in the trip of the three generating units. The Kendal units are anticipated to return to service by the weekend,’’ he added.

Eskom said prior to this, a generating unit each at Arnot and Medupi power stations had been taken offline for emergency repairs.

‘’The breakdowns have resulted in intense usage of the pumped storage schemes and the Open Cycle Gas Turbines. These emergency generation reserves are designed to fill the generation gap resulting from exactly for this kind of emergency, and obviously cannot be used continuously.’’

‘’While some generation units are anticipated to return to service over the next 24 hours, it is necessary to increase the loadshedding to conserve the emergency reserves,’’ added Mantshantsha.

PICTURE: Pixabay


Meanwhile, the City of Cape Town has announced that its customers will be on Stage 3 load shedding until 10 o’clock on Tuesday, thereafter it will escalate to Stage 4 until 5 o’clock on Wednesday morning, whereby Stage 2 load shedding will kick in.

 

Done By: Mitchum George

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