Cold weather, plant breakdowns floor Eskom: stage 4 is back

Eskom will implement stage-4 load shedding on Thursday as it struggles with increased demand due to colder weather and a “continued shortage of generation capacity”.

After earlier on Wednesday saying it would only cut the power at stage 2 on Wednesday and Thursday evenings this week, the state-owned power utility said this would be escalated to cuts starting at 5am on Thursday and running all day.

“Stage-2 load shedding will be implemented at 5am until 4pm, then will increase to stage 4 at 4pm to midnight on Thursday,” Eskom said.

“It is anticipated that stage 2 will be implemented at 5am to midnight on Friday. This load shedding will also assist in recovering emergency generation reserves, which have been utilised extensively to meet the increased demand over the last few days.

“The delay in returning a generation unit to service each at Arnot, Koeberg and the Kusile power stations, as well as the unplanned breakdowns of a generation unit each at Camden, Grootvlei, Lethabo, Majuba and Medupi, and two units at Hendrina power stations, have exacerbated the capacity constraints. Some generation units are anticipated to return to service over the next few days.

“While the return of unit 2 of the Koeberg nuclear power station is anticipated for Friday night, should there be further delays, or other unit breakdowns, load shedding might have to be extended into the weekend.”  — © 2022 NewsCentral Media

Source: techcentral.co.za