All the latest news and analysis on load shedding, power and the national grid
In a public address, President Cyril Ramaphosa will announce measures to address South Africa’s energy crisis at 20:00 on Monday.
Eskom will also be allowed to"procure immediately available power generation solutions on an emergency basis for two to three years, while ensuring transparency and cost-effectiveness." This could clear the way for Eskom to contract with gas-fired powerships, assuming they could pass environmental regulation, which has so far blocked plans for their deployment.
During the early hours of Monday morning, there were two electrical faults in quick succession in the high voltage yard at Kriel power station.The first fault caused units 1, 2 and 3 of the power station to trip, while the second fault tripped units 4 and 5. The incident removed more than 2 000MW of generation capacity from the network.
The utility will cut 1,000 megawatts from the grid from 4 p.m. until midnight on Friday and then suspend the blackouts until at least July 29, according to a schedule published on Twitter. Constraints to the power system remain, Eskom said. Eskom has 3 693MW on planned maintenance, while another 14 261MW of capacity is unavailable due to breakdowns.Load shedding will continue until Saturday, Eskom confirmed on Thursday, adding that the outlook for the weekend would be communicated over the weekend. Eskom confirms load shedding stages for this week
Further units are expected to return to service next week, but load shedding is expected to continue for several more weeks. Load shedding will continue to be maintained at Stage 3 until midnight on Wednesday and Thursday, Eskom said. Stage 4 was supposed to kick in from 16:00 until midnight on both days, but this is no longer the case.Previously, Eskom expected that lower stages of load shedding to be implemented through the weekend as some units return to service.