Johannesburg City Power has switched to a new two-hour load shedding schedule instead of cutting power for four hours at a time. The new schedule kicked in on Friday night and is available on City Power’s website.
The announcement follows Eskom’s implementation of Stage 2 load shedding on Friday after the forced shutdown of five generation units at the Medupi power station.
City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena says, “City Power does not want to load shed its customers, we are often like now forced to implement load shedding as and when Eskom experiences network challenges on their side. City Power technical team says in recent weeks, they have been in discussion with Eskom to align our load shedding schedule with theirs. This was to result with City Power migrating from our current four hour schedule to the new two hour schedule similar to that of Eskom.
Stage 2 load shedding continues
Eskom says Stage 2 load shedding will continue throughout the weekend because of constraints on its network. Disruptive rain is making it difficult to get coal supplies to the Medupi plant in Limpopo.
It says the system remains vulnerable and unpredictable.
Eskom spokesperson Sikhonathi Mantshantsha says, “The load shedding has been exacerbated by the forced shutdown of five generation units at Medupi power station as a result of the inability to get coal into the units due to the heavy rains in the Liphalale area. Eskom has implemented a contingency plan and deployed additional resources to deal with the heavy rainfalls in Mpumalanga and the Limpopo areas and the teams are working hard to return as many of the units to service as possible.”
In the video below, Energy specialist Chris Yelland discusses Eskom’s implementation of Stage 2 load shedding this weekend:
