- South Africa’s state owned energy utility, Eskom, reports that Stage 4 loadshedding will continue to be implemented until 16:00 on Monday afternoon, whereafter Stage 5 loadshedding will be implemented at 16:00 – 05:00 on Tuesday morning.
- Loadshedding will then be reduced to Stage 3 at 05:00 – 16:00 on both Tuesday and Wednesday, while Stage 4 will be implemented during 16:00 – 05:00 on both Tuesday and Wednesday.
The utility reports that over the past 24 hours, a generating unit each at the Arnot, Grootvlei, Kendal, Medupi and Tutuka power stations were returned to service. Breakdowns at a unit each at Camden, Majuba and Matimba power stations caused units to be taken offline for repairs. The delay in returning a unit each to service at Arnot, Hendrina, Kendal, Medupi and Tutuka power stations are contributing to the current capacity constraints.
Further, electricity imports from the Cahora Bassa Hydro Scheme in Mozambique have been halved to 600MW due to a tower failure on one of the lines from that country.
Four Open Cycle Gas Turbines at Ankerlig peaking station are out of service until 15 March 2023 for planned maintenance.
Breakdowns currently amount to 16 870MW of generating capacity while 4 757MW of generating capacity is out of service for planned maintenance.
Last week at National Energy Crisis Committee briefing, Eskom’s acting head of generation, Thomas Conradie, said that the utility did not move beyond Stage 6 load shedding. Instead, they dropped large customers from the grid, which took the dropped load to more than 7 000MW.
Author: Bryan Groenendaal
