Eskom CEO, André de Ruyter, has again appealed for electricity to be used sparingly as the power utility battles to keep the lights on in South Africa amid Stage 6 blackouts on Sunday.
Eskom escalated rolling blackouts to Stage 6 on Sunday morning due to a continued loss in generating capacity.
De Ruyter says everyone is called to use electricity wisely
” I have already requested municipalities in South Africa to access where they have low critical loads that can be switched off. I will also be engaging with representatives of organised business to request further assistance on managing particularly the peaks, similarly the lighting of office buildings at night is something that can give us some room to breath,” says De Ruyter.
Eskom briefs the media on the current system challenges
Stage 6: Unplanned load losses and maintenance issues
Unplanned load losses at Eskom as a result of units out of planned maintenance have resulted in Eskom making a decision to implement Stage 6 load shedding.
Speaking at the Eskom briefing on Sunday morning, De Ruyter says the grid was placed under serious pressure this week.
He says power utility needs to now replenish reserves in order to maintain a safety buffer.
Stage 6 load shedding, which will likely remain for the rest of the day, was implemented just after 4am this morning, after the tripping of a generating unit each at Kusile and Kriel power stations.
De Ruyter says liquidity to buy diesel is a problem.
Visit https://t.co/UzMtttaJ4q to check the loadshedding status including the stage and schedules. More information relating to loadshedding is also available on the site. pic.twitter.com/e7dcCL2jeh
— Eskom Hld SOC Ltd (@Eskom_SA) September 18, 2022
Meanwhile, the Democratic Alliance (DA) has called for the immediate return of President Cyril Ramaphosa to South Africa to address the electricity crisis.
Ramaphosa is currently on a US-UK visit, and is expected to attend Queen Elizabeth’s funeral in London on Monday.
DA Shadow Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy, Kevin Mileham says Ramaphosa is now duty bound to declare a ring-fenced State of Disaster around Eskom.
“Over the past few weeks Ramaphosa has ignored several DA warnings that his energy response plan has veered off track due to the ineffective national electricity crisis committee. The national assembly speaker has refused to hold Ramaphosa and his executive accountable. She has ignored DA’s call to establish an ad hock committee to exercise oversight over the national electricity crisis committee and the implementation of the energy response plan. By so doing, she has reduced parliament to a mere spectator on the electricity crisis and undermine parliament’s constitutional function to hold the executive to account,” says Mileham.
With Eskom announcing Stage 6 loadshedding due to a system-wide failure of generation units, Ramaphosa is now duty bound to heed the DA call and declare a ring-fenced State of Disaster around Eskom.
The President must return to SA immediately.https://t.co/x440ZBKZDy
— Democratic Alliance (@Our_DA) September 18, 2022
