South Africa is again on the brink of load shedding, Eskom warns

There is a strong possibility that Eskom will again implement load shedding, with the state-owned power utility warning that this will become necessary if there are any further breakdowns in its generation plant.

It said the system is “severely constrained”.

“Load shedding may be required at short notice should any further generation breakdowns occur, or should some of the generating units not return to service as expected,” it said.

“Over the past 24 hours, Eskom teams have returned a generation unit each at the Camden, Kendal and Medupi power stations. Over the same period, two generation units — one at Arnot and the other at Hendrina — tripped, while a unit each at Arnot and Lethal were forced to shut down.”

Eskom said total breakdowns now amount to 15.9GW, while planned maintenance is at 4GW of capacity.

The utility last week plunged South Africa into stage-4 load shedding, meaning it withdrew 4GW of capacity from the national grid.  — (c) 2021 NewsCentral Media