South Africa Braces for Extensive Load Shedding as Four Eskom Generating Units Fail

In the wake of compromised power reliability, South Africans are anticipating extensive power outages this week. Eskom, the principal electricity supplier in South Africa, has announced that Stage 5 and 6 load shedding will be implemented due to the failure of four generating units.

Loss of the units, the urgent need to revitalize the emergency generation reserves, and an escalation in planned maintenance necessitate continuous Stage 5 load shedding until 4pm on Tuesday. Thereafter, the rise to Stage 6 load shedding is slated from 4pm until 5am on Wednesday.

Eskom has indicated that the current pattern of implementing Stage 5 load shedding from 5am to 4pm and Stage 6 load shedding from 4pm until 5am will be perpetuated daily until Friday morning. Currently, breakdowns amount to 16,784MW of generating capacity, while the capacity earmarked as out of service for planned maintenance aggregates to 4,987MW.

In a 24-hour timespan, one generation unit from Camden, Duvha, and Kendal has been restored to service. Conversely, a unit from each of the power stations at Duvha, Grootvlei, Kendal, and Matla was taken offline for repairs.

Eskom's teams are addressing the concurrent capacity constraints, primarily resulting from the delay in restoring to service a generating unit each at Hendrina, Kendal, Matimba, and Matla power stations. These stations' evening peak demand is predicted to surge to 29,542MW.