Eskom lost additional generation capacity on Wednesday night and said it would therefore implement state-2 rotational blackouts throughout Thursday and into Friday.
Browsing: Energy and sustainability
The energy minister’s reluctance to fast-track renewable power projects could prolong the electricity shortages, which have caused the economy to stagnate and sapped investor confidence.
Eskom, South Africa’s biggest polluter, said it will slash emissions of three major pollutants by 2035 while it asks for exemptions to incoming standards to avoid as much as R37-billion in expenditure.
There is a high likelihood that Eskom will implement stage-2 load shedding on Wednesday evening to replenish water resources for its pumped storage schemes and to minimise the use of diesel.
The largest decline in reliable electricity supply in recent years occurred in South Africa, but much of the rest of the continent is in far worse shape as electrification projects have stalled.
Eskom will implement stage-2 load shedding in the early hours of Wednesday, later than it might otherwise have done so, to “accommodate the release of the matric results”.
Eskom’s generating plant breakdowns took out a stratospheric 15.9GW on Saturday at 6.30am, the highest level yet, which means an astonishing 40% of its coal fleet of around 40GW was offline.
Eskom extended power cuts that started on 4 January until Monday after a conveyor belt failure at its Medupi plant – just as Andre de Ruyter officially takes over as head of the cash-strapped company.
Many South Africans still haven’t returned to work from the holiday season, yet Eskom has already plunged the country back into darkness, casting chances of a recovery in the economy in 2020 into serious doubt.
André de Ruyter, the incoming head of South Africa’s debt-burdened state power utility, engaged in questionable stock sales while working as a senior executive at Sasol in 2013, according to a forensic audit report.