While South Africans were expecting a brief respite from loadshedding in the form of Stage 2 power cuts, that respite has been scuppered.
This morning Eskom has announced that it will need to upgrade loadshedding to Stage 4 from 10:00 on Tuesday.
“A sudden tripping of three Kendal Power Station units (1 920MW maximum generating capacity) has forced the implementation of Stage 4 loadshedding starting at 10:00 THIS morning until 05:00 on Thursday morning. A full statement will be published shortly,” the utility tweeted out moments ago.
A sudden tripping of three Kendal Power Station units (1 920MW maximum generating capacity) has forced the implementation of Stage 4 loadshedding starting at 10:00 THIS morning until 05:00 on Thursday morning. A full statement will be published shortly
— Eskom Hld SOC Ltd (@Eskom_SA) September 13, 2022
This is grim news after a week of grim news. On Monday, Eskom chief operating officer Jan Oberholzer revealed that the last week Eskom lost a total of 42 generation units. This created a shortfall of 24 000MW which had improved to 22 000MW by Monday.
Worse still, Oberholzer warned that maintenance work being done isn’t up to the standard that is required.
“We find the maintenance we are doing is not yielding the required results and effects. Many generating units return from planned maintenance only to suffer breakdowns again,” the COO said as quoted by News24.
“The standard and quality of work being done are not what it should be, owing to lack of skills, particularly artisan skills and skilled operators both in Eskom and some of our partner contractors,” he added.
With no end to loadshedding in sight and the situation seemingly only getting worse, we urge you to download EskomSePush for Android and iOS devices to plan your week ahead accordingly.
[Image – CC 0 Pixabay]
