Eskom has warned of a full week of load-shedding, saying stage 4 may continue if the power utility fails to gather enough generation capacity to feed national peak demand.
On Monday the embattled power utility increased load-shedding to stage 4 after unit 2 at the Kusile Power Station tripped, taking 720MW of generating capacity with it.
Eskom said it has 1,904MW on planned maintenance, while 17,255MW of capacity is unavailable due to breakdowns., Eskom suffered at least eight major breakdowns at its power stations, worsening strain on the already fragile and constrained power system. He said the expected return of some of those units to service this week may not be enough to suspend load-shedding.
“If we look at the week ahead, we are short of the generating capacity we need to supply the country’s demand. “It’s important to make the point that load-shedding may increase if there are additional breakdowns. The three units we expected to return to service have returned. However, because of unreliability and the unpredictability of our system, should something drastic happen we may be forced to increase the stage of load-shedding from 3 to 4,” he said.
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