File picture: Itumeleng English/African News Agency/ANA
POWER utility Eskom has announced it will ramp up load shedding to Stage 3 from 4pm until 5am on Tuesday morning.
South Africa is currently enduring unprecedented load shedding blackouts, with the load shedding app EskomSePush reporting in late October that South Africa had already experienced over 100 days of load shedding in 2022.
Comparatively, there were 48 days of load shedding in 2021, 35 days in 2020 at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, and just 22 days in 2019.
Eskom has blamed breakdowns and the depletion of emergency generation reserves.
Eskom spokesperson Sikhonathi Matshantsha said they would implement Stage 2 and 3 load shedding on Tuesday.
“Load shedding will increase to Stage 3 from 4pm – 5am on Monday and Tuesday evenings, while Stage 2 load shedding will be implemented at 5am to 4pm on Tuesday, until further notice,” Matshantsha said on Monday.
“The higher stage of load shedding is mainly due to the high level of breakdowns as well as the depleted emergency generation reserves.”
Eskom said generating units failed at the Duvha, Kriel and Tutuka power stations.
There were also delays in the returning to service of a unit each at Duvha and Majuba power stations.
“A generating unit each at Grootvlei, Hendrina, Majuba, Matla and Medupi power stations were returned to service.
“We currently have 4,177MW on planned maintenance, while another 16,922MW of capacity is unavailable due to breakdowns.
“Load shedding is implemented only as a last resort in view of the shortage of generation capacity, and the need to attend to breakdowns,” said Matshantsha.