Eskom’s own mishandling of a repair contract led to the closure of its Camden power plant, a move that worsened power cuts by South Africa’s near-monopoly electricity provider, the company said.
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State-owned power monopoly Eskom cannot say how long a new round of power cuts that began on Friday will last, its spokesman Sikonathi Mantshantsha said.
Eskom will escalate the load shedding level from 1 to 2 at 2pm on Wednesday after it blamed high demand for the need to ramp up the rolling nationwide blackouts.
While some generating units have returned to service, Eskom will implement stage-1 load shedding on Wednesday. The power utility is set to implement stage 1 from 9am until 10pm.
Eskom may have broken tender laws in concluding a 2005 agreement with Black & Veatch that increased more than 100-fold in cost, according to a probe of the contract.
Eskom will implement load shedding for the first time in nearly four months, the state-owned utility said on Friday, as plant breakdowns reduced its ability to meet demand.
The economic transformation committee of the ANC has suggested that pension funds take over some of the assets of indebted state-owned power company Eskom.
Eskom warned on Thursday that there is a high likelihood of the first load shedding in almost four months on Thursday as it struggles to return generating units to service.
The spectre of load shedding, which has been kept in abeyance since the Covid-19 lockdown began in late March, has reared its ugly head again after several power-generation units tripped.
Eskom said on Monday that it will cut the supply of electricity to several towns around the country over non-payment for electricity.