Power utility Eskom has assured the nation that it’ll resolve the implementation of stage 6 load shedding, by the end of the week.
This after it implemented the rolling blackouts following the loss of 3000 megawatts at Medupe and Majuba power stations respectively.
During a joint briefing with the Eskom management in Pretoria, Electricity and Energy Minister, Kgosientsho Ramokgopa said they have now ramped up planned maintenance to fix the issue.
“We are guided by the generation recovery plan, which places front-centre investments on the installed fleet, ensuring we have these machines reliable.
As part of that, we had to up our maintenance.
So, we had to go to levels of maintenance that have not been recorded in recent history,” said Ramokgopa.
Eskom CEO Dan Marokane is optimistic that the load shedding stages will be reduced on Monday, with the gradual return of units.
“With the recovery pace that we are experiencing thus far and will experience for the rest of the week, we should be able to take a view around stepping down from the level of stage six load shedding by tomorrow (Monday).
We will, on the basis of the actual recovery itself and the recovery of reserves, make a call in terms of how we step down,” explained Marokane.
In addition, Marokane said the loss of multiple units at the Majuba power station was caused by an overload on a transformer.
He further said that when they checked the situation at Majuba on Saturday, it coincided with the trip to Medupi power station which had to do with the underfrequency in the network.
“At Majuba, five units were lost but were brought back online by 6am on Sunday, as well as one at Camden.
The power utility would proceed to bring the rest of the units back into operation,” remarked the CEO.
Eskom last implemented load shedding at the end of January, after more than 30 months of uninterrupted electricity supply.
