Eskom to implement Stage 2 load-shedding continuously
Eskom said on Wednesday morning it would implement Stage 2 load-shedding continuously until Thursday morning as electricity capacity constraints did not allow it to give clients respite during morning and afternoon peak traffic periods.
"Stage 2 rotational load-shedding is currently in effect until 06:00 tomorrow, when the situation will be reviewed," the State-owned utility said.
"While a number of units have returned to service overnight, we still continue to replenish our emergency reserves, hence there will regrettably be no respite during today’s morning and afternoon traffic rush hours."
Eskom warned last week that the country should expect rolling power cuts to be a fixture for the foreseeable future.
This week it said it would pilot a policy of interrupting the scheduled blackouts during early morning and late afternoon rush hour in order to give commuters a reprieve of a few hours.
But on Tuesday, increased demand and unexpected blackouts made it impossible to allow consumers a two-hour break in the afternoon's load-shedding schedule.
Eskom also warned that it may have to escalate the level of load-shedding if circumstances required. Stage 2 load-shedding sees up to 2 000 megawatt of demand taken off the national grid.
"Customers are advised that, while not expected, any additional shifts on the system may require a change in the load-shedding stage," the utility said.
It said as of 6 am on Wednesday, unexpected outages and breakdowns had resulted in lost capacity of 9 817 megawatts.
"Load-shedding is necessary due to a shortage in capacity and to enable us to replenish emergency reserves which were extensively used to supplement capacity yesterday," the company said.
"Critical maintenance is being done on units that are currently on planned outages as well as some of those on unplanned outages to ensure timeous return to service."
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