Eskom to resume rolling blackouts after few days reprieve
South Africa's electricity utility Eskom said on Thursday it would resume rotational power cuts from 9 am after a few days' reprieve and this would likely continue over the weekend.
Eskom, which supplies about 95 percent of the country's electricity, has been forced to intermittently apply load-shedding for months, suppressing demand to avoid overwhelming the grid in the face of frequent breakdowns in its generating units.
"We regret that Stage 2 rotational load-shedding will be implemented from 09:00 today until 06:00 on Saturday owing to the loss of 3 additional units overnight that has increased the shortage in capacity," it said on Thursday.
"There is a high probability that load-shedding will continue over the weekend, as there is a need to replenish reserves for the coming week."
The utility said it was currently utilising emergency reserves to supplement the shortage in capacity and reiterated that there was a possibility of increased load-shedding over the next 18 months as it conducted critical maintenance to restore its ageing plants to good health.
Eskom usually implements stage 2 load-shedding which requires throttling 2 000 megawatts of demand at any given time, but scaled this up to an unprecedented "stage 6" one day last year as pressure on the grid spiked.
Comments
The
content
you are trying to access is only available to subscribers.
If you are already a subscriber, you can Login Here.
If you are not a subscriber, you can subscribe now, by selecting one of the below options.
For more information or assistance, please contact us at subscriptions@creamermedia.co.za.
Option 1 (equivalent of R125 a month):
Receive a weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine
(print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
Receive daily email newsletters
Access to full search results
Access archive of magazine back copies
Access to Projects in Progress
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format
Option 2 (equivalent of R375 a month):
All benefits from Option 1
PLUS
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports, in PDF format, on various industrial and mining sectors
including Electricity; Water; Energy Transition; Hydrogen; Roads, Rail and Ports; Coal; Gold; Platinum; Battery Metals; etc.
Already a subscriber?
Forgotten your password?
Receive weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine (print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
➕
Recieve daily email newsletters
➕
Access to full search results
➕
Access archive of magazine back copies
➕
Access to Projects in Progress
➕
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format
RESEARCH CHANNEL AFRICA
R4500 (equivalent of R375 a month)
SUBSCRIBEAll benefits from Option 1
➕
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports on various industrial and mining sectors, in PDF format, including on:
Electricity
➕
Water
➕
Energy Transition
➕
Hydrogen
➕
Roads, Rail and Ports
➕
Coal
➕
Gold
➕
Platinum
➕
Battery Metals
➕
etc.
Receive all benefits from Option 1 or Option 2 delivered to numerous people at your company
➕
Multiple User names and Passwords for simultaneous log-ins
➕
Intranet integration access to all in your organisation