By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Power utility Eskom has announced that it will introduce stage 2 load shedding on Wednesday (2 February), due to ongoing power constraints.
Following further breakdowns during the night, load shedding will begin at 11h00 on Wednesday until 05h00 on Monday 07 February.
“This load shedding is necessary due to a shortage of generation capacity following breakdowns of two more generating units during the night.
“Since the weekend Eskom has utilised significant amounts of emergency generating reserves, which have now been depleted and need to be replenished. Eskom will use this period to replenish the emergency generation reserves,” it said.
Total breakdowns amount to 14,99wMW while planned maintenance is 4,435MW of capacity. The group said it will communicate further if there are any significant changes to the power system.
Eskom has warned in a summer load shedding forecast for 2021/2022, that its system is likely to remain severely constrained for the near future.
In January, Eskom took unit 2 of the Koeberg Nuclear Power Station offline, for a regular refuelling and maintenance outage that is scheduled for five months.
It said that the Koeberg unit 1 outage, of a similar duration, will follow later in the year during which the unit 1 steam generators will also be replaced; its reactor pressure vessel head was replaced several years ago.
The Koeberg units, at 920MW each, are the largest generating units on the African continent.
Major projects and outages undertaken this year will continue to exert pressure on the supply side, raising the risk of load-shedding in the short term. These outages, however, are necessary interventions that will deliver long-term benefits and the security of energy supply, Eskom said.
“Despite our good performance in recent weeks – particularly over the festive season, surpassing that of the previous quarter as well as the same period in 2020 – much still needs to be done for Eskom to achieve operational sustainability and ensure energy security for South Africa,” said André de Ruyter, Eskom’s group chief executive.
For people living in the major metros, load shedding schedules are available here:
- City of Johannesburg
- City of Ekurhuleni
- City of Tshwane
- City of Cape Town (PDF)
- Nelson Mandela Bay
- eThekwini
- Manguang
- Buffalo City
For access to other load shedding schedules, Eskom has made them available on loadshedding.eskom.co.za.