News Flash
- South Africa’s state owned energy utility, Eskom, has suddenly announced that stage 6 loadshedding has been implemented until further notice.
- This is due to sudden breakdowns at some of its ageing fleet of coal fired power stations.
- Stage 6 means South African’s will be without power for six hours or more every day.
“This is due to a high number of breakdowns since midnight, as well as the requirement to strictly preserve the remaining emergency generation reserves,” Eskom said in a statement.
“Since Tuesday night, breakdowns of two generating units at Grootvlei Power Station occurred, as well as a unit each at Arnot, Duvha, Kendal, Kriel and Tutuka power stations. In addition, two units at Arnot, a unit each at Camden, Kendal and Kriel power stations have been delayed in returning to service,” the utility said in a statement release.
A unit at Matla Power Station returned to service late last night.
Of the total 44000MW generation capacity, Eskom, currently has 4984MW on planned maintenance, while another 19052MW of capacity is unavailable due to breakdowns.
Related news: No Eskom cheer expected in financials
Earlier this week Eskom announced that the “Imminent refuelling and maintenance outage, as well as the long-term operation project of Unit 1 of the Koeberg Nuclear Power Station, together with the October chimney failure that has forced three generation units offline at Kusile Power Station, will further reduce available generation capacity and significantly increase the occurrence of loadshedding during the next 6 -12 months.” Read more
Eskom has also depleted their budget to acquire diesel for the Open Cycle Gas Turbines, as such they have been forced to strictly conserve the remainder of the fuel reserves to protect against further unplanned outages. Read more
Author: Bryan Groenendaal
