Stage 2 loadshedding will resume at 8 o’ clock Sunday morning after it was suspended on Saturday afternoon at 5 o’ clock in the afternoon. The power utility says the system remains vulnerable and constrained, but that two generating units returned to service on Saturday morning, which allowed it to temporarily suspend the rotational power cuts.
“The pumped-storage schemes have recovered adequately, setting us on a good course to full recovery by Monday morning,” Eskom said in a statement.
Eskom says it will only be able to confirm later whether loads hedding will continue into the week.
“Unplanned breakdowns have reduced, giving us some reprieve from load shedding during the night while affording us some headroom to replenish the emergency reserves to better meet the week’s demand. Unplanned outages or breakdowns were at 10 553 MW at 8:00 this morning, while planned maintenance is 5 679 MW. Even though we can provide relief tonight, the system remains unpredictable and constrained.”
Below is Eskom’s full statement on loadshedding:
#POWERALERT 1
Date: 22 February 2020Rotational loadshedding will stop at 17:00 today, and will resume again on Sunday at 08:00 @SABCNewsOnline @SABCRadio @IOL @eNCA @ewnupdates @News24 @SAgovnews @TheSAnews pic.twitter.com/18GBe6V4yz
— Eskom Hld SOC Ltd (@Eskom_SA) February 22, 2020
Challenges facing the power utility featured predominately during the State of the Nation Address (SONA) debate earlier this week in Parliament.
Mineral Resources and Energy Minister Gwede Mantashe announced Eskom is unable to meet its energy demands.
“According to Eskom we face at least two years minimum of potential load shedding. The President mentioned the following measures we will implement to address energy shortage; procurement of emergency power; the easing of requirement and process for generation for all use and enabling municipalities in good financial standing to buy their own power. “
In the video below, Minister of Mineral Resources Gwede Mantashe and other MPs debate the State of the Nation Address:
Mantashe disputed suggestions that Independent Power Producers (IPPs) are ready to supply extra electricity to the national grid.
The Democratic Alliance urged the Minister to purchase excess power from the existing IPPs, who they say are constrained to only sell limited quantities to the grid.
The party said currently any excess power generated by IPPs goes to waste. Mantashe disputed this.
“I hear it from everybody else except the Department of Energy, which means to me I know it’s not real, that we have available energy and the state does not want to use it. Where is it? Why don’t you bring it? Why do they talk to everybody else except the relevant department? There’s no such energy until it comes to the fore.”
