Eskom Urges South Africans to Use Electricity Sparingly
Eskom, South Africa’s main electricity provider, urged South Africans to continue using electricity sparingly to help them limit the impact of loadshedding as it will be implementing stage 2 loadshedding from 10pm tonight until 5am tomorrow morning.
Eskom spokesman Sikhonathi Mantshantsha said that stage 2 loadshedding will be repeated again Wednesday night starting at 10pm and 5am in the morning.
“This loadshedding is necessary to preserve emergency generation reserves in preparation for higher demand expected in January when economic activity resumes. During this period Eskom will continue to pursue increased reliability maintenance as planned and previously communicated to the public throughout the year,” said Mantshantsha.
He added that Eskom currently had over 9 700 MW of capacity on planned maintenance while another 11 300 MW was unavailable due to unplanned maintenance.
Eskom said their teams were working around the clock to return as many of these generation units to service. Mantshantsha said they would communicate timeously should there be any significant changes to the power system and to the loadshedding as planned today.
About two weeks ago, Eskom implemented Stage 2 loadshedding that started Secember 12 at 6am until 11pm. At the time, Eskom said it needed to implement the loadshedding in order to replenish the depleted emergency generation reserves for the coming week.
“As Eskom ramps up its planned maintenance during the lower demand summer period, as previously committed, it has had a large number of unforeseen breakdowns from the ageing, unreliable plant over the past few days. In addition to this, Eskom has taken two generation units at the Kendal Power Station offline in compliance with environmental legislation. Similarly, four generation units at the Camden Power Station have been taken offline to conserve the integrity of the ash dam facility,” said Eskom at the time.
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