Power utility Eskom has pushed load shedding back to stage 6 on Friday morning (16 December) following multiple breakdowns at its power stations.<\/p>\n
Stage 6 load shedding was implemented at 08h30 and will continue until further notice.<\/p>\n
The escalation was necessary due to the failure of 8 generating units overnight and the excessive reliance on open-cycle gas turbines and pumped storage generation that is rapidly depleting these reserves, Eskom said.<\/p>\n
Eskom will give a full update in due course, it said.<\/p>\n
The embattled power utility had initially intended on keeping load shedding at stage 4 until Sunday and then de-escalating to stage 3 for the week ahead.<\/p>\n
South Africa is likely to sit with prolonged levels of load shedding for the foreseeable future. Last Saturday (10 December) 1,000MW was removed from the grid through Koeberg unit 1 being taken offline, and approximately 3,000MW is offline from various breakdowns at Kusile and Medupi.<\/p>\n
According to Eskom\u2019s outlook for the next year, it needs to keep breakdowns below 13,000MW to stave off the worst of load shedding, but the utility has struggled to keep outages below 16,000MW \u2013 the worst-case scenario in its plans.<\/p>\n
Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter announced his resignation this week on the back of the worst levels of load shedding on record. While Public Enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan acknowledged that de Ruyter is not to blame for the load shedding, the power utility has not been able to resolve the crisis under his leadership.<\/p>\n
Schedules\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n For people living in the major metros, load shedding schedules are available here:<\/p>\n For access to other load shedding schedules, Eskom has made them available on\u00a0loadshedding.eskom.co.za.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n\n
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