SA at the risk of stage 6 load shedding, warns Eskom
Eskom warns South Africans it could be forced to ramp up rolling blackouts to stage 6.
This comes as the price of Brent crude oil continues to rise due to the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
The embattled power utility says it continues to monitor and evaluate the impact of the war as oil and gas prices continue to soar.
Eskom COO Jan Oberholzer told the media briefing on Wednesday that the utility is running at nine million litres of diesel a day, which is not sustainable.
He says if dam levels fall and diesel capacity falls further, load shedding might be ramped up to stage 6.
“We are delivering 100 tankers of diesel a day to Ankerlig power station, that is 4 million litres a day and between Ankerlig and Gourikwa. We are using 9 million litres of diesel a day – we are using a lot of money currently to top up the capacity from an emergency point of view, which is not sustainable.
“Should we run out of diesel at these power stations, this capacity will not be available to supply to the demand and will necessitate a further 3 stages of load shedding to be implemented, the combined effect will be 6 stages of load shedding,” says Oberholzer.
Oberholzer says the outlook for the year is much more positive, but the unreliability and unpredictability makes it difficult.
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