Eskom power outlook for the week
State-owned power utility Eskom said it will implement stage 1 load shedding from 17:00 on Tuesday (5 May), which is likely to continue until 22:00 in the evening.
It follows a similar cut countrywide implemented on Monday, “due to a shortage of generation capacity as several units are currently out of service due to maintenance”.
Eskom said it was able to perform maintenance on 2,608 MW of generating plant over the long-weekend, while returning 2,304 MW of generating capacity back to service over this period.
The group said it needs a minimum of 3,000 MW and maximum of 5,000 MW buffer either through supply-side or demand-side options in order to close the maintenance backlog and avoid load shedding.
The prior weekend saw technicians carry out planned maintenance on 2,303 MW of Eskom’s generating plant, returning 1,453 MW back to service over that period.
The group said in a system status bulletin on Monday that electricity demand is expected to surpass supply until the end of the week.
Eskom said peak demand on Tuesday was expected to reach 32,345 MW, while supply could only account for 30,466 MW, including the use of the open-cycle gas turbines.
On Wednesday, the power utility would only have 31,497 MW of capacity to meet peak demand of 31,979 MW, while on Thursday, the capacity of 31,135 MW was expected to be under forecast demand of 32,341 MW.
On Friday however, Eskom said it expected to have capacity of 32,933 MW, versus a forecast demand of 30,908 MW.
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