Plant breakdowns have plunged South Africa back into stage-6 load shedding. The struggling state-owned utility announced it will impose the severe cuts, up from stage 5, from 4pm on Wednesday.
Blaming a shortage of generation capacity, the utility said stage 5 will be implemented from 5am to 4pm on Thursday, with a return to stage 6 thereafter. “This pattern will be repeated daily until further notice,” it said.
Breakdowns have reached 16.8GW of capacity, while plant out on planned maintenance was at 5.8GW of capacity.
Read: ‘It’s hell’: Mobile networks face load shedding nightmare
Over the past 24 hours, two Eskom generation units were returned to service at Kriel power station. However, outages elsewhere have exacerbated the situation:
- A generating unit at Duvha power station was taken offline for repairs.
- Delays in returning a unit each to service at Camden, Kendal, Lethabo, Medupi and Tutuka power stations have contributed to the capacity constraints.
- Similarly, the increase in demand after the long weekend and the re-opening of schools has put additional strain on the power generation system.
Eskom did not provide an outlook for the weekend. – © 2023 NewsCentral Media
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