Eskom has implemented load shedding 26 times in the last 100 days, as it battles to keep up with its supply of electricity, data shows.
South Africans have had to spend 26% of their year so far planning for a day with load shedding.
Eskom has effectively cut off 43GW of electricity to municipality customers during the three stages of load shedding it has implemented since 1 January. (Incidentally, Eskom’s fleet can produce a total of 42GW when it is functioning optimally.)
This figure does not take into account the 10% Eskom cuts off from major industry players every time it announces load shedding.
The utility says the lack of capacity is due to planned maintenance, which it hopes to complete ahead of winter, when customer usage spikes. The grid would then not be able to handle the combination of planned and unplanned maintenance.
Double the amount of megawatts is cut off due to unplanned maintenance than from planned maintenance, data shows. For example, on Monday, planned maintenance resulted in 5,4GW being taken off the grid, while 8,7GW was taken off due to unplanned maintenance. — Fin24
