South Africans will have to brace for a weekend of loadshedding, following the loss of further generation capacity at several power stations.
This is according to an alert from Eskom late on Friday afternoon which announced that Stage 2 loadshedding had been extended to at least 23:00 in Sunday 14th March.
“Over the past 24 hours further breakdowns occurred at three power stations, putting further strain on the generation capacity,” wrote Eskom.
The three power stations in question are Kriel, Medupi and Kendal power stations. “Various faults” are to blame for the outages as well as “emerging risks at various power stations” the utility said.
While these losses have impacted the grid, it should be noted there has been an increase in loss of generation due to planned maintenance. Eskom reports a loss of 7 071MW due to planned maintenance while 11 780MW is unavailable due to unplanned maintenance.
“Eskom is working hard to return the units back to service, and should the previously stated risks materialise and units not return as expected, there is a high probability that loadshedding may continue into the coming week,” wrote Eskom.
It appears as if it’s going to be dark weekend. Charge up those smartphones, tablets and notebooks or fill up your generators and check your schedules to see when the power is planned to be cut.
Our go to app to check loadshedding schedules is EskomSePush which has recently been updated to feature the new two-hour sessions for certain areas in Gauteng.
EskomSePush is available to download for free on the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store.
Stage 2 loadshedding will be extended to 23:00 on Sunday following the loss of further
generation capacity and to replenish emergency generation reserves pic.twitter.com/XtQ2MFtSaV— Eskom Hld SOC Ltd (@Eskom_SA) March 12, 2021
