So far this year, Eskom has experienced 342 unit trips against a target of 196, 4.61GW of load losses against a target of 3.97GW and 23.1% unplanned load losses against a target of 18%.
Browsing: Energy and sustainability
The state-owned power utility said the rolling cuts will begin at 9am on Tuesday and last until at least 5am on Saturday, two days before South Africans go to the polls.
City Power, Johannesburg’s municipal electricity company, has walked back a claim it made at the weekend that it wasn’t imposing load shedding on residents.
Eskom chief operating officer Jan Oberholzer said load shedding is not expected during the upcoming local government elections.
Eskom has vowed to continue with its accelerated maintenance programme throughout the summer months.
Eskom will implement stage-2 load shedding from 9pm on Saturday until 5am on Monday, the state-owned electricity utility said on Twitter.
Eskom, which is seeking funding to move away from coal-fired power, held “fruitful discussions” with Western climate envoys recently, its CEO said.
South Africa is seeking cheap finance for more than R400-billion of electricity infrastructure as part of its plans to move away from heavily polluting coal.
The world’s richest countries are courting South Africa as a model of how to transition to a more climate-friendly future from a dependency on coal. It’s a pity about the politics, then.
Eskom has filed an urgent application in the high court to prevent a situation where it will be unable to generate any revenue from 1 April next year.