Yesterday, Eskom was kind enough to make everyone aware that load shedding was a possibility once again. It hadn’t even been two weeks, so it was about time. Not that we’re looking forward to it or anything, it’s just kind of expected at this point.
We’re starting off on Stage 2. It will be implemented from 16h00 today, Wednesday 3 July, until 24h00 and then over the same time tomorrow, Thursday 4 July.
Only for two days… so far
As it mentioned in the notice sent out yesterday, Eskom is citing losses in power generation capacity for the reason we will once again need to fetch the candles. Let’s be honest, you probably haven’t put them away in months.
Due to the shortage of generation capacity, Stage 2 loadshedding will be implemented at 16:00 – 24:00 this afternoon and tomorrow pic.twitter.com/MrW4XgXYLy
— Eskom Hld SOC Ltd (@Eskom_SA) August 3, 2022
Eskom explained:
“The delay in returning a generation unit to service each at Arnot, Koeberg and the Kusile power stations as well as unplanned outages of a generation unit each at Camden, Medupi and two units each at Grootvlei, Hendrina and Majuba power stations, have exacerbated the capacity constraints.”
The power utility is optimistic that some of those units are likely to return to service in the next few days. But we’d wager that, if there is already 15,051MW of capacity unavailable due to breakdowns, the chances of that increasing are just as likely.
The master plan that President Ramaphosa (sort of) detailed last week can’t come soon enough.