ESKOM has announced that stage 2 load shedding will be implemented today, following further losses in generation capacity.
Load shedding will take place between 16h00 and 00h00 on Wednesday and Thursday.
“The delay in returning a generation unit to service each at Arnot, Koeberg and the Kusile power stations as well as unplanned outages of a generation unit each at Camden, Medupi and two units each at Grootvlei, Hendrina and Majuba power stations, have exacerbated the capacity constraints,” Eskom said.
Units are expected to return over the next few days, it said.
Eskom suspended load shedding 11 days ago, following five weeks of intense rolling blackouts that reached as high as stage 6 – the shedding of 6,000 MW from the grid and load shedding for up to four hours at a time.
The period pushed president Cyril Ramaphosa to take drastic action and implement an energy crisis plan, which will see the government reduce red tape and fast-track new energy capacity builds to bolster the country’s energy sources.
The president’s Energy Crisis Committee on Monday (1 August) laid out a plan that will see the country add as much as 1,950MW of power to the grid over the next three months. However, analysts have stressed that this is not enough to cover Eskom’s immediate shortfall of 6,000MW.
STAFF REPORTER|
