Load shedding picture improves as Kusile unit returns

After a rough workweek of load shedding — much of it at stage 6 — Eskom is promising an improved outlook for the week ahead.

Kusile power station’s unit 4 has returned to service after a 20-day maintenance outage, bringing back 800MW. The unit came back online on Sunday morning.

Units 1, 2 and 3 of the newly built but never fully operational power station in Mpumalanga were taken offline due to a flue-gas desulphurisation mechanism that was damaged in an accident in October 2022. This affected stacks at the units.

Electricity minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa said these three units are expected to come online between October and the end of November.

“We’ve been able to shed a month on the return of unit 3 and the expectation is that we should be able to return this unit by 14 October. The same is applicable for unit 1. We should be able to get it on 30 October.

On progress made on unit 2, the minister said the team initially was of the view that the unit would return on 24 December. However, this has been revised to 30 November.

Ramokgopa reiterated that Kusile is central to addressing the load shedding question, because “we will need significant more additional generating capacity to be able to address this”.

Kusile unit handed over to Eskom’s generation division

In an update on Sunday afternoon, Eskom said that due to further improvements in generation capacity, stage-2 load shedding will be implemented from 4pm until 4pm on Monday. Thereafter, stage-4 load shedding will be implemented until 5am on Tuesday. This will be followed by stage 2 from 5am to 4pm.

“This pattern will be repeated daily until further notice,” it said.

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