Johannesburg – Load-shedding is back from Tuesday.
Eskom on Monday announced that owing to a loss of generating units and an expected increase in electricity demand it was implementing load-shedding.
“With the current intensified maintenance aimed at improving the fleet performance, we had a setback of three generating units (2 148MW) not coming back online as anticipated.”
“This coupled with a loss of six generating units (3 113MW), and projected increase in electricity demand requires Stage 2 load-shedding to be implemented from 05:00 on Tuesday until 16:00, followed by Stage 3 load-shedding until 05:00 on Wednesday.
“This pattern of Stage 2 loadshedding in the morning and Stage 3 loadshedding in the evening will be repeated daily until further notice. Eskom will closely monitor the power system and communicate any changes should it be required.”
The power utility said unplanned outages are currently at 16 231MW of generating capacity, while the capacity out of service for planned maintenance is 8 451MW.
Eskom said its teams were working tirelessly to ensure that 4 921MW of generating capacity is returned to service before the end of the week.
“Eskom’s load forecast for the evening peak demand for Tuesday is 23 011MW,” said the power utility.
“We would like to thank those who do heed the call to use electricity sparingly and efficiently, including switching off geysers and pool pumps from 17:00 to 21:00, as this lowers demand and helps in alleviating the pressure on the power system and contributes to lower stages of load-shedding.”
