South Africa could be plunged back into load shedding later on Tuesday after only a brief respite from the rolling power cuts that plagued the country through much of July.
Eskom warned on Tuesday that stage-2 load shedding “might” be implemented at short notice between 4pm and midnight over the next three days.
The state-owned utility blamed plant breakdowns in its coal-fired fleet of power stations for pushing the country back to the brink of rolling blackouts.
“The delay in returning a generation unit to service each at Arnot, Kusile and the Koeberg power stations, as well as the failure of a generation unit each at Medupi, Hendrina and Camden and two units at Majuba, have exacerbated the capacity constraints. Some generation units at other power stations are expected to return to service over the next few days,” the company said in a statement.
“Should there be any further loss of generation capacity over the next three days, or should some units fail to return to service as anticipated, load shedding may be required to be implemented at short notice,” it said. — (c) 2022 NewsCentral Media