Eskom warns of stage 6 blackouts this evening
Eskom has warned South Africans to prepare for stage 6 load shedding on Tuesday evening amid industrial action at several of its power stations around the country.
The power utility’s CEO Andre de Ruyter and COO Jan Oberholzer briefed the media on Tuesday morning on the state of the power grid amid the ongoing stage 4 load shedding.
De Ruyter says the system has deteriorated overnight and the utility might be forced to ramp up load shedding.
“As you are aware, we find ourselves in stage 4 load shedding already. We have had significant deterioration in the system overnight. We saw the loss of ten units only one of which has returned. And as a consequence, there is a very real risk of having to implement stage 6 load shedding by evening peak tonight, which means 5 pm,” says De Ruyter.
Meanwhile, COO Jan Oberholzer says the system is running at a massive deficit.
“We currently have a deficit of 1400MW for evening peak, and this includes stage 4 load shedding. So this is why it is critical that we make sure that the units at four stations return to service at peak otherwise we will find ourselves in a very difficult situation.
“If we are unable to return those units to the grid by the peak, unfortunately, we will have to implement stage 6 load shedding by 5pm. If we are implementing stage 6 load shedding over a period of 24 hours, that means you can expect at least six hours of load shedding during the day, it can be split by the supplier authority into two or three batches,” says Oberholzer.
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