Just when South Africans were getting used to an uninterrupted supply of power, Eskom is pulling the plug again: Load shedding returns at 5pm on Wednesday.
The state-owned electricity monopoly said in a statement that the stage-2 power cuts — which will see 2GW of supply cut from the grid — will last until 11pm on Friday.
Generation capacity is “severely constrained”, Eskom said, warning that the cuts could start earlier on Wednesday if there are any further plant breakdowns during the day.
“Continued poor performance at the Kusile, Duvha and Tutuka power stations as well as delays in returning some other units to service and breakdowns in the last week have caused the need to implement this load shedding,” it said.
“Eskom has had to extensively utilise the emergency generation reserves, which are being rapidly depleted. This period of load shedding will be used to replenish the emergency generation reserves.”
The company said load shedding likely to continue throughout the weekend, too, “depending on plants returning to service from planned maintenance as well as the levels of the emergency generation reserves.” — (c) 2021 NewsCentral Media
