All-day load shedding is back after Eskom suffers 6 breakdowns
Power utility Eskom says that full-day continuous load shedding at stage 2 will be implemented on Friday, and it will continue until further notice.
Stage 2 load shedding will kick in and continue from 16h00 on Friday, it said. Eskom will publish a further update as soon as there are any significant changes.
This follows the breakdown of six generating units at five power stations, it said, on top of constraints due to diesel pressures and the need to conserve energy.
A generating unit each at Duvha, Grootvlei, Hendrina, Majuba and two units at Arnot Power Station, were taken offline for repairs over the past 24 hours. The delay in returning to service two generating units at Camden and one unit each at Arnot and Duvha power stations contributed to the capacity constraints.
A generating unit each at Kriel and Matla power stations were returned to service during this period.
“As previously communicated, due to the depletion of the budget to acquire diesel for the Open Cycle Gas Turbines, Eskom has been forced to strictly conserve the fuel for the direst of emergencies,” it said.
The group currently has 4,423MW on planned maintenance, while another 16,708MW of capacity is unavailable due to breakdowns.
Eskom warned that the chance of load shedding occurring over the next six to 12 months will be greatly increased as it deals with key units being off the grid.
“The imminent refuelling and maintenance outage, as well as the long-term operation project of Unit 1 of the Koeberg Nuclear Power Station, together with the October chimney failure that has forced three generation units offline at Kusile Power Station, will further reduce available generation capacity and significantly increase the occurrence of loadshedding during the next six to twelve months,” it siad.
“Eskom requests the public to exercise patience and tolerance during this difficult period
Eskom recently published its Week 47 outlook for the grid, saying that it expects to have enough capacity over the festive seasons to stage off load shedding for Christmas and New Year’s eve.
However, this comes with the sacrifice of much-needed maintenance.
Instead of the 8,956MW of generating capacity it had planned to take down for maintenance in the week of 19–25 December 2022 in the past few weeks’ system status outlooks, it now said it would only take down 6,641MW.
The difference of 2,315MW works out to about 26% less planned maintenance.
For the week of 26 December to 1 January 2023, the utility will now be subjecting only 7,537MW of capacity to planned maintenance, compared to 10,806MW in the outlook from Week 46.
That means it will take down 3,269MW less than it had planned — a reduction of 30%.
Schedules
For people living in the major metros, load shedding schedules are available here:
- City of Johannesburg
- City of Ekurhuleni
- City of Tshwane
- City of Cape Town (PDF)
- Nelson Mandela Bay
- eThekwini
- Manguang
- Buffalo City
For access to other load shedding schedules, Eskom has made them available on loadshedding.eskom.co.za.
Smartphone users can also download the app EskomSePush to receive push notifications when load shedding is implemented, as well as the times the area you are in will be off.
Read: Ramaphosa’s big plan to end load shedding – where we are now
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