South Africa: Eskom Announces Four Days’ Load Shedding

South Africa’s utility company, Eskom has begun Stage 1 power cuts on Monday, March 9, 2020.

The load shedding exercise is expected to stay until Thursday this week.

“We regret to inform the country that starting from 09:00 tomorrow [9 March], Eskom will implement Stage 1 loadshedding until 23:00. It is envisaged loadshedding may continue to be implemented until Thursday,” Eskom in a statement.

Unplanned breakdowns or outages were at 11,700MW as at 19:20 on Sunday evening and planned maintenance outages are at 4,963MW.

The utility added: “This is due to a number of units still on unplanned breakdowns, which will only return during the course of the week. It will also help Eskom to rebuild the emergency reserves that were depleted as we strove to keep the lights on during the high equipment breakdowns we experienced towards the end of last week.”

Implementing loadshedding will put Eskom in a better position to meet the rising demand during the week. Work is also continuing to return to service some of the unplanned breakdowns we experienced.

The system is currently constrained, unpredictable and vulnerable. Demand has also incrementally risen since January, putting pressure on the aging fleet.

Eskom has therefore urged every South African to co-operate in managing electricity consumption with care to help us minimise loadshedding.

 Source:www.energynewsafrica.com