De Ruyter expects load shedding to ease only on Thursday

The stage-6 power cuts imposed by Eskom since the weekend are likely to lessen in intensity only by Thursday, CEO André de Ruyter said in a press conference on Monday afternoon.

The stage-6 cuts, which Eskom imposed from Sunday night “until further notice”, have been implemented despite the company running its open-cycle gas turbines “hard” after securing guarantees from national treasury that allow it to borrow money from commercial banks to buy diesel stock.

Load shedding will likely be reduced to stage 4 from 5am on Thursday, De Ruyter said. This will be reduced further to stage 3 by the weekend — assuming all goes according to plan.

The state-owned company is struggling to keep the lights on amid various problems at its power stations, where there are either complete breakdowns of generating units or partial load losses.

Read: Eskom plant breakdowns hit 21GW

De Ruyter said Eskom hopes to return 3GW of electricity production to the grid during the course of Monday, followed by 2GW per day on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

“All in all, we face a very constrained situation. We appeal to the public to use electricity sparingly,” the CEO said.  – © 2023 NewsCentral Media

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