A candle is seen near a electrical distribution board Eskom announced the return of daily. Picture: Jacques Naude / Independent Newspapers
LOAD SHEDDING made its return on Tuesday after a festive season reprieve as experts said while there had been some improvement in energy capacity compared with the same time last year, it was not enough to see the end of the scheduled power cuts.
Eskom announced on Tuesday that with its current intensified maintenance aimed at improving the fleet performance, it had a setback of three generating units (2,148 megawatts) not coming back online as anticipated.
“This, coupled with a loss of six generating units (3,113MW), and projected increase in electricity demand, requires Stage 2 load shedding to be implemented from 5am on Tuesday until 4pm, followed by Stage 3 load shedding until 5am on Wednesday. This pattern of Stage 2 load shedding in the morning and Stage 3 load shedding in the evening will be repeated daily until further notice.”
On December 31, Eskom said Unit 5 of the Kusile Power Station Project was synchronised to the national grid for the first time.
“The unit will contribute an additional 800MW to the country’s power system which was never part of the Eskom’s grid capacity. It will supply electricity intermittently during the testing and optimisation phase over the next six months before being transferred into commercial operation and the capacity officially added to the current Eskom fleet.”
THE MERCURY
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