Eskom: Stage 6 load shedding to continue until Friday
Eskom says stage 6 load shedding will be in place until Friday morning.
The planned power cuts will then be reduced to stage 5 until Saturday.
The troubled power utility has to experiencing a series of breakdowns at power plants, and will also take 1000MW off the grid when Koeberg Unit 1 undergoes long-term maintanance from Wednesday.
Since Tuesday night, breakdowns of two generating units at Grootvlei Power Station occurred, as well as a unit each at Arnot, Duvha, Kendal, Kriel and Tutuka power stations.
In addition, two units at Arnot,a unit each at Camden, Kendal and Kriel power stations have been delayed in returning to service.
A unit at Matla Power Station returned to service late last night.
Eskom Spokesperson Sikonathi Mantshantsha says currently the utility has 4 984MW on planned maintenance, while another 19 052MW of capacity is unavailable due to breakdowns.
"Due to the depletion of the budget to acquire diesel for the Open Cycle Gas Turbines, Eskom has been forced to strictly preserve the remaining diesel for any extreme emergency situations such as multiple, simultaneous trips of generators. The pumped storage dam levels also need to be replenished during this load shedding."
"The refuelling and maintenance outage starting tonight, as well as the long-term operation project of Unit 1 of the Koeberg Nuclear Power Station, together with the October chimney failure that has forced three generation units offline at Kusile Power Station, will further reduce available generation capacity and exacerbate the occurrence of load shedding over the next six to 12 months."
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