South Africans may want brace for potential loadshedding as Eskom has issued a warning about a severely constrained power system.
While the utility was able to suspend loadshedding on Friday evening, it did state that it would be working over the weekend to return several generation units to service.
“These are a unit at Hendrina and two generation units each at Arnot, Duvha, Majuba and Tutuka power stations. The low weekend demand will assist in replenishing emergency reserves,” the utility said on Friday while also stating that the system was severely constrained and volatile.
Unfortunately, on Monday afternoon Eskom revealed that it had lost “multiple generators” over the weekend and there were delays in bringing some units to service.
While the utility says it is working to return units at Matimba, Duvha and Arnot power stations, the evening demand may prove testing for Eskom.
As of time of writing there is 13 601MW unavailable due to breakdowns and 4 533MW are unavailable due to planned maintenance.
All of this combines to paint a rather grim outlook for loadshedding for the forthcoming week with Eskom stating it may have to implement loadshedding “at very short notice” should it lose yet more generation capacity.
The utility is starting to make implementation of loadshedding at the last minute a bit of an alarming habit so we highly recommend you check your schedule for the week and plan accordingly.
To that end, we highly recommend that EskomSePush app for Android and iOS as it not only alerts you when loadshedding is happening, but also gives you a bit more warning than Eskom itself does.
Once again, loadshedding is currently not in effect as of time of publication but should this change we will be sure to update this story.
Eskom urges the public to reduce the consumption of electricity as the power system is severely constrained due to the delay in returning units to service and the loss of multiple generation units pic.twitter.com/4RJXcV6xPI
— Eskom Hld SOC Ltd (@Eskom_SA) April 25, 2022
