Eskom has implemented stage 3 load shedding from today at 14:00, until Monday at 05:00.
According to the entity, the return of the blackouts comes after it lost 2 700 megawatts in the past 14 hours.
“This includes Koeberg Unit 2, which was taken offline after being brought back on Wednesday, and two Kusile Units whose coal operations went sub-optimal following adverse weather in the area.
Higher levels of planned maintenance outages, aimed at winter preparation and meeting regulatory and environmental licensing requirements are still underway.
The constrained capacity resulted in the increased reliance on emergency reserves during this week, which makes it necessary to focus on replenishing these critical resources during the weekend in preparation for the business week,” said Eskom spokesperson, Daphne Mokoena.
Mokoena further said that the entity will deploy resources to expedite the repair of units currently offline and is confident that 6 200 megawatts will be restored to service by Monday’s evening peak.
Eskom said that this obstacle occurred while the system was already under strain.
Despite the setback, the entity said its summer outlook remains unchanged.
“We reiterate our commitment to ensuring that South Africa is in no way returning to the levels of load shedding that we experienced in 2023.
Two years into delivering the generation recovery plan, that will bring an end loadshedding, we are at a challenging time and the full force of our highly skilled engineering resources are deployed and focussed.
We have had some delays in returning units that previously tripped back to the grid, as well as to the return of three units that have been on longer-term outage that will bring back 2 500 megawatts to the grid, which will happen over the coming weeks,” said Eskom’s Group Executive for Generation, Bheki Nxumalo.
Meanwhile, Eskom Group Chief Executive Dan Marokane has apologised to the nation for the setback, adding that load shedding is a painful reminder of the past.
“We maintain our guidance that load shedding is largely behind us due to structural improvements in the generation fleet.
While baseload capacity remains constrained, our generation recovery plan is addressing this challenge.
Achieving our goal of a stable energy availability factor of 65%-70% will significantly reduce the risk of load shedding,” remarked Marokane.
Minister of Electricity and Energy, Dr. Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, alongside Eskom, will provide an update on the country’s electricity generation performance on Saturday.
