Units at all 12 of Eskom’s oldest and most important power stations have shut down, leading to an unprecedented 17,371MW of power being removed from the grid, City Press reports.<\/p>\n
According to documents seen by the paper, the Eskom power crisis is far worse than first thought, leaving the country’s power grid in a more harrowing position than during the rolling blackouts of 2015 – when 15,500MW was offline.<\/p>\n
At the centre of the crisis, all major power stations have had units shut down due to failures or planned maintenance – while new stations have had to be shut down due to poor construction.<\/p>\n
Public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan revealed this week that design flaws at the new Medupi and Kusile power stations caused unit failure, taking as much as 1,000MW off the grid.<\/p>\n
To fix the issues, it will cost as much as R345 billion, the paper said.<\/p>\n
Eskom said that power levels should be more sustainable over Christmas, and there should be enough power available by the end of the year – but to repair everything that needs to be fixed will take until January 2021 to accomplish.<\/p>\n
Adding to the capacity crisis, Eskom is also too broke to buy enough diesel to make up for the loss of power.<\/p>\n
The group is also set back by faults on lines bringing power from its hydro plants, and poor monitoring of oil levels which causes auto shut-downs.<\/p>\n
Energy experts have also said that poor coal quality is another major issues, with plants having to be shut down to clean out damaging materials as a result.<\/p>\n
Eskom said in a statement on Saturday (8 December), that there is high probability for stage 2 load shedding on Sunday.<\/p>\n
It said that increased breakdowns at power stations had further impacted the availability of sufficient generation capacity.<\/p>\n
“As a result, we have been unable to build up the necessary reserve for the week ahead.<\/p>\n
“We therefore regret to announce that stage 2 load shedding remains a high probability for tomorrow (Sunday),” the statement said.<\/p>\n