Eskom reduces rolling blackouts to Stage 3

Eskom has reduced its rolling blackouts to Stage 3. The power utility says from five am tomorrow morning, it will further reduce the rolling blackouts to Stage 2.

At the weekend, Eskom ramped up the rolling blackouts to Stage 4 after more generating units at its ageing coal-fired power stations went down.

Eskom says it also needs to conserve emergency diesel stocks for its backup systems.

But, independent energy analyst Clyde Mallinson says the scheduled critical maintenance of the Koeberg nuclear power station, north of Cape Town, will only worsen the country’s already bad energy situation.

“The units at Koeberg are each about 920 megawatts, which is pretty close to one stage of load shedding. It’s not routine maintenance. It’s a major, major refurbishment, in order to extend the licence for Koeberg for another 20 years. Even when they decided to do this refurbishment on Koeberg, first of all, it’s not a given that they will get the licence to extend. It’s a necessary step, but not a sufficient step.”

#PowerAlert1

Loadshedding will be reduced to Stage 3 at 05:00 on Monday morning and to Stage 2 at 05:00 on Tuesday until further notice. pic.twitter.com/ufsJLtPf72

— Eskom Hld SOC Ltd (@Eskom_SA) December 4, 2022