- Eskom Initiates 2nd wave of load shedding.
- Load shedding begins at 5 pm Monday and ends at 5 pm Wednesday
- Eskom’s overall capacity breakdown was 15,228MW, with 6,307MW capacity scheduled for maintenance.
South Africa’s state-owned utility, Eskom, has implemented stage 2 load-shedding following multiple producing unit failures in the previous 24 hours. According to the utility, rotating power interruptions will be from 17:00 on Monday to 05:00 on Wednesday morning.
The load shedding follows the tripping of a unit at each of the Matla, Kendal, Matimba, Kusile, and Grootvlei power stations on Monday and the forced shutdown of a unit at the Arnot and Hendrina power stations. Eskom provided an update shortly after its initial notification, noting that a unit at Medupi had failed. Following the further failure at Medupi, Eskom declared that load-shedding would be required from Monday night through Wednesday morning.
“This load-shedding is necessary for Eskom to refill its emergency power reserves, which have been heavily used since the weekend,” the utility explained.
“This, combined with the tripping of other units over the weekend, limited available generation capacity, causing Eskom to rely extensively on emergency generation reserves to keep the lights on,” the utility added.
Eskom’s overall capacity breakdown was 15,228MW, with 6,307MW of capacity scheduled for maintenance. Eskom has warned that if any more major breakdowns occurred before the problems at Medupi, more load-shedding might be required at short notice.
“While we expect some generation units to return to service over the next 24 hours, Eskom appeals to all South Africans to help us limit the impact of load-shedding by reducing electricity usage and switching off all non-essential items,” the utility stated.