South Africa: Eskom Urges Electricity Consumers To Reduce Power Usage As System Failure Bites

South Africa’s power utility company, Eskom, is urging the public to reduce electricity usage as the power generation system is severely constrained in the country.

A statement issued by the company on Monday said the return of one generation unit has been delayed, while another two units have tripped.

It, however, said one of the tripped units has returned.

“While Eskom teams are working hard to return as many of these generation units to service as possible, any further deterioration in the generation performance may necessitate the implementation of load shedding at short notice.

“As the aged generation infrastructure is unreliable and volatile, this constrained power system is expected to persist for the rest of the week,” Eskom said.

The return of a unit each at Majuba and Medupi power stations has been delayed.

Eskom noted that a unit each at the Tutuka and Hendrina power stations also tripped earlier on Monday, adding that further there were breakdowns at the Tutuka, Majuba, Komati, Kendal and Hendrina power stations.

The company said these unplanned breakdowns contributed to the more than 11,000MW of capacity, adding to the 4,658MW currently out on planned maintenance.

“We urge the people of South Africa to help reduce electricity usage in order to assist Eskom to keep the lights on,” Eskom said.

Source:www.energynewsafrica.com