Eskom has announced that load shedding will be hiked to stage 3 today, 19 November. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eskom said that it needs to replenish its emergency reserves for the week ahead. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thus, stage 3 will be implemented from 09:00 today until 05:00 on Monday, 20 November. The schedule for today initially had a rotation between stages 1 and 2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The embattled power utility said that it will communicate the outlook for the week ahead this afternoon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The news comes amid a rare win for the utility after it announced that Unit 1 at South Africa’s only nuclear power station \u2013 Koeberg \u2013 has been successfully reconnected to the grid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The replacement of three steam generators at the unit faced several delays, pushing its completion date from June to November 2023. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The unit’s return adds just under 1,000 MW to the grid – or one stage of load shedding. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unit 2 – which has been generating electricity throughout Unit 1’s outage – will also undergo a similar refurbishment process once all the required commissioning tests are finished on Unit 1. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although Unit 2’s outage will be similar in scope, Eskom said that it learnt valuable lessons from Unit 1’s outage, meaning that the outage time should be reduced. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe replacement of steam generators is a huge milestone in the life of Koeberg as it was identified by Eskom as a prerequisite for the extension of the operating licence for Loeberg beyond its original design life of 40 years,\u201d Eskom said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cEskom has already submitted a licence application to the National Nuclear Regulator (NNR) for Koeberg\u2019s operating life extension by an additional 20 years, which is being assessed by the NNR.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n