Eskom will implement Stage 1 load shedding from 9am on Thursday morning until 2pm in the afternoon when it will change to Stage 2 until 10pm.
Eskom says the high demand for electricity because of the cold weather has put an additional strain on its generating system. On Wednesday, teams managed to return one generation unit to service at the Tutuka power station, but it was countered by generation units tripping at the Medupi and Kusile Power stations.
The power utility’s spokesperson Sinonathi Mantshantshan says demand surged to more than 33 000 megawatts which is the highest this year.
Eskom cannot say how long latest power cuts will last
Eskom cannot say how long a new round of power cuts that began on Friday last week will last, Mantshantsha told Reuters.
Eskom implemented planned power outages for the first time since March, ending a period of unusually stable power supply thanks to reduced demand during the coronavirus lockdown.
The company generates more than 90% of South Africa’s power, but has battled to meet demand for years because of faults at its coal-fired power stations, which have interrupted power supplies, hampered economic growth and deterred investment.
“The reality is we don’t know which of the coal units are going to fail on any given day, that is true for both the old and the new units,” Mantshantsha said.
He said Eskom was sending a team led by one of its senior engineers to try to improve the performance of problem power stations. Morning peak power demand on Wednesday was at its highest this year because of extremely cold weather, compounding the generation shortfall, Mantshantsha added.
Eskom said on Wednesday that it would step up load shedding to “Stage 2” from “Stage 1” from 12pm requiring more supply interruptions.
Stage 1 allows for up to 1 000 megawatts of the national load to be shed, and Stage 2 up to 2 000 megawatts.
Despite assurances from the government that it would expedite procurement of new generation capacity late last year, when Eskom implemented some of the worst power cuts on record, additional capacity has not yet been procured.
“Once this bout of load shedding is over, it would be naive to think we are done with load shedding,” Mantshantsha said.
“We don’t have a single extra megawatt since we implemented Stage 6 load shedding during summer.”
