By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
After a minor reprieve from load shedding during the day on Sunday, power utility Eskom has announced the return of Stage 4.
Rolling blackouts will move to a rotation of stage 3 and stage 4 load shedding this week, with the aim of reducing to stage 2 and stage 3 by the middle of the week.
Stage 3 load shedding will be implemented at 05h00 – 16h00 daily, while stage 4 load shedding will be implemented nightly at 16h00 – 05h00 on both Monday and Tuesday. On Wednesday, stage 2 load shedding will be implemented at 05h00 – 16h00, followed by stage 3 load shedding at 16h00 – 05h00.
A further update will be published as soon as any significant changes occur, Eskom said.
Since Saturday, two generation units at Arnot, a single unit each at Camden, Duvha and Kendal power stations were taken offline for repairs. The return to service of a generation unit each at Kendal and Lethabo power stations have been delayed while a unit each at Duvha and Lethabo power stations were returned to service.
Breakdowns currently amount to 15,215MW of generating capacity, while 5,199MW of generating capacity is out of service for planned maintenance.
During a briefing last week, Eskom said that, over the medium term, more generating units should be brought back from planned maintenance ahead of the winter months, which should help the utility better meet demand over the period.
The group is putting great focus on returning units from planned maintenance so this can be done reliably and on time. Unfortunately, when it comes to unplanned outages, units are proving to be unreliable and thus introduce high levels of unpredictability to the system.
The power utility is embarking on a five-point plan to tackle the worst of load shedding in the immediate term, focusing on painting higher levels of energy availability at the best-performing units while trying to turn around operations at six underperforming stations in the fleet.
According to the Eskom board, it is also trying to restore morale amongst workers and proceeding with the legal separation of the group into three different companies.
For access to other load shedding schedules, Eskom has made them available on loadshedding.eskom.co.za.
Smartphone users can also download the app EskomSePush to receive push notifications when load shedding is implemented, as well as the times the area you are in will be off.
Meanwhile the African National Congress (ANC) wants Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma to lead South Africa’s efforts to resolve the load-shedding crisis in a national state of disaster.
It was one of the recommendations made at the ruling party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) lekgotla last week.
At the same time, however, there is mounting pressure from within President Cyril Ramaphosa’s cabinet to reject the recommendation.
Those opposed to the minister of cooperative governance and traditional affairs (COGTA) guiding the country’s energy recovery efforts have warned her decisions during the Covid-19 pandemic made her highly unpopular with South African voters.
Ramaphosa is expected to announce a reshuffled cabinet within days of his 2023 state of the nation address on 9 February.
Several political experts believe that the 74-year-old Dlamini-Zuma will be among the ministers getting axed.
Aside from her falling out of favour with the general public, she also appears to have become an outright political enemy of Ramaphosa.
Dlamini-Zuma was one of four ANC members of Parliament who voted to adopt the much-criticised Section 89 report into the Phala Phala farm scandal, refusing to toe the party line on the matter.