South Africa’s ailing power utility Eskom warned that load shedding would continue on Friday starting at 9 a.m. until at least 6 a.m. on Saturday as its generating units continue to perform at low levels of reliability, reported Reuters.
The power utility, which produces more than 90% of South Africa’s power, implemented stage two load shedding on Thursday due to unplanned breakdowns of generating units with above 12,300 MW capacity and critically low water levels at its pumped storage schemes.
“With units not returning, we were unable to replenish water reserves overnight for our pumped storage schemes,” Eskom said in a statement on Friday.
The statement said that the company is currently utilizing diesel at its open cycle gas turbine to supplement capacity and to limit the level of loadshedding. It noted that the power utility is experiencing coal handling problems at a number of its power stations as a result of wet coal due to incessant rains, which has contributed to additional load losses. The power supply might continue to suffer because of the rainy weather.
“While not expected or planned, further deterioration of plant performance or emergence of other risks may necessitate invoking further stages of load-shedding,” Eskom said.
Meanwhile, the power utility has urged South Africans to reduce electricity usage so that it can alleviate some of the pressure on its grid and lessen the need for load shedding. It said rotational blackouts were necessary in order to avoid a national breakdown of its power grid.
Eskom has asked its consumers to check their load shedding schedules on the Eskom or municipal websites.
“We are now sitting with additional outages and planned outages that were conducted have not returned. This is why we’ve implemented stage two load shedding. Our dam levels are also low, so our emergency reserves are not where we’d like them to be,” said Eskom spokesperson Dikatso Mothae.
