South Africa’s Loadshedding Moves to Stage 4
Due to further failures of generation units, Stage 4 load shedding (power cuts) is now being implemented in South Africa until 05:00 on Friday, in order to manage the emergency reserves. Eskom said in a statement on Wednesday morning: “It is with a great deal of disappointment that Eskom has to inform the public that […]
Due to further failures of generation units, Stage 4 load shedding (power cuts) is now being implemented in South Africa until 05:00 on Friday, in order to manage the emergency reserves.
Eskom said in a statement on Wednesday morning: “It is with a great deal of disappointment that Eskom has to inform the public that further failures overnight of generation units has necessitated the implementation of Stage 4 load shedding starting at 09:00 this morning.
“Unfortunately, this has to continue until 05:00 on Friday. Thereafter load shedding will be lowered to Stage 2 until 05:00 on Monday morning.”
South Africa’s power utility said it “would like to apologise for the implementation of load shedding, and will continuously review the situation and act appropriately as circumstances change.”
Stage 4 load-shedding, and we're now into year 15 of these rolling blackouts.
Russia invades Ukraine and bombs its biggest nuclear power station, but their lights stay on. And their train stations don't look like this.
The ANC is a bigger liability for SA than actual war. pic.twitter.com/Q3aEE4cr5N
— Jacques Maree (@JacquesMaree73) March 9, 2022
Eskom explained that last night a unit each at Kendal, Duvha. Camden and Kusile power stations tripped. “Since then, we have returned four units to service. However, these units still need to ramp up to full output, which necessitates a high usage of emergency generation reserves today. This is the fourth day of extremely high diesel usage. the emergency reserves are being depleted faster than can be replenished.”
Stage 4 load shedding will give Eskom the space required to replenish the emergency reserves and continue to manage the system safely, it said.
Total breakdowns amount to 15 439MW while planned maintenance is 5 505MW of capacity.
Eskom again appealed to all South Africans to help limit the impact of load shedding by reducing their usage of electricity and switching off all non-essential items.
Stage 4 #loadshedding till Friday (at least).
This is the result of a ruling party ANC that deployed 10 ceos and 6 boards to #eskom in 10 years and handed out contracts to friends and family like Chancellor house and the Guptas. And all this following 13 years of zero new build.
— James Styan (@jamesstyan) March 9, 2022