Eskom Announces Load Shedding from Tonight for South Africans

Eskom says it will implement stage 2 load shedding from 10pm to 5am for two nights, the power utility announced on Wednesday 6 January.

According to Eskom, the blackout will take place tonight and Thursday evening.

“The load shedding is necessary to recover and preserve the emergency generation reserves that have been utilised to support the system during the week following the earlier than planned shutdown of Koeberg unit 1 and other units whose return to service has been delayed,” the power utility explained.

The power utility currently has 6 672MW on planned maintenance, while another 12 073MW of capacity is unavailable due to unplanned maintenance.

Eskom said its teams are working around the clock to return as many of these units to service as soon as possible.

The State-owned entity is urging the public to reduce electricity consumption to help minimise more load shedding.

Meanwhile, the system remains vulnerable and unpredictable, Eskom added.

“Load shedding is implemented as a last resort to protect the integrity of the system.”

Eskom said it would continue to implement reliability maintenance during this period as previously communicated, meaning the system will still be constrained, while the risk of load shedding remains elevated.

“At the moment the equivalent of two large power stations is out for planned maintenance, adding pressure to the system.”

On Monday, Eskom said the Koeberg unit 1 had been taken offline for repairs, routine maintenance and refuelling outage and said it is expected to return to service during May 2021.

However, it said unit 2 continues to operate safely and generate at full power. – SAnews.gov.za