In a move that sent a wave of irritation across the country, Eskom confirmed that from Saturday evening, South Africa has moved to stage 2 loadshedding.
Eskom confirms stage 2 loadshedding
In a statement, the power utility revealed that rotational power cuts would be implemented from 21:00 on Saturday evening until 05:00 on Monday.
“This loadshedding has been caused by breakdowns, numerous trips at various power stations, as well as delays in returning units to service. This has required us to rely heavily on emergency generation reserves, which are now at very low levels,” Eskom explained.
Moreover, the state-owned power supplier revealed that total breakdowns stood at 15 627MW on Saturday, with an estimated 5 000MW unplugged from the grid due to ongoing plant maintenance.
“Over the past week there have been multiple breakdowns and trips, including those at Tutuka, Kriel, Hendrina, Kusile, Arnot and Kendal power stations. While some of these units have already returned to service, this has required us to utilise extensive emergency generation reserves to supplement capacity during the week,” the power utility added.
#POWERALERT 1
— Eskom Hld SOC Ltd (@Eskom_SA) October 23, 2021
Stage 2 loadshedding will be implemented at 21:00 tonight until 05:00 on Monday in order to replenish emergency generation reserves for the week ahead pic.twitter.com/A4GcceBSTY
SA should expect loadshedding for the next five years
At this time, Eskom has not confirmed if rotational power cuts would be extended into next week. However, according to energy expert Ted Blom, we ought to expect loadshedding to continue for at least the next five years.
“It would have been avoidable, but given that the management of Eskom has said they won’t spend money on refurbishing the coal power units, I suspect we will going to have lots more load shedding in the next 5 years,” he said.
In a recent interview with East Coast Radio, Blom laid the blame for Eskom’s woes squarely on CEO Andre De Ruyter. In Blom’s opinion, the executive’s decision to invest heavily in building renewable energy alternatives has cost the utility’s existing power sources vulnerable.
“It’s even worse, because with renewables, they are talking about battery storage. There are no utility-size battery storage plants available anywhere in the world. There is no country that’s running battery storage as backup,” Blom added.