Eskom has issued a statement, confirming the resumption of stage 2 loadshedding from Monday.
Power cuts lowered to stage 1 on Sunday
The power utility informed South Africans that after a short reprieve from heightened rotational power cuts, short energy capacity has forced it to keep the status at stage 2 in the coming week.
“Loadshedding will be reduced to stage 1 from 23:00 tonight until 05:00. Regrettably, as the return to service of some generation units has been delayed… Stage 2 will be implemented from 05:00 tomorrow morning,” the energy utility noted.
New week resumes with stage 2 loadshedding
Eskom comes into a new week with capacity and maintenance issues that are the subject of Zondo’s state capture probe.
Already, we have heard the lambasting testimony of former Eskom CEO Brian Molefe, who maintains that loadshedding is an instrument used by President Cyril Ramaphosa, Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan to lure private interest.
That tug-of-war occurs at a time where Eskom’s system “remains constrained and vulnerable.”
“The return to service of two generation units at Kusile power station that were not available last week has been delayed due to difficulties in restarting the units, which are now expected to return to service starting tomorrow,” the power utility explained.
Covid-19 impacts Eskom operations
The power utility vowed to work tirelessly to restore power in the national grid. However, issues outside of its control have plagued efforts to conduct repair operations timeously.
“Despite Eskom’s stringent measures to manage the impact of the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic on the operations, we are experiencing some impact on operations, including our suppliers. For example, at the Medupi power station, we have had 48 positive cases out of a pool of 75 contractors, which has negatively affected our ability to executive work as planned,” the utility wrote.
In the latest updates on the grid’s capacity, Eskom confirmed that currently, more than 13 100MW of capacity “is unavailable due to unplanned maintenance, breakdowns and the outage delays mentioned above.”