If you were hoping Eskom would suddenly become competent, keep dreaming. As it stands, things don’t look good. It’s possible we’re all stuck with high stages of load shedding for the rest of the week. And, deep down, we know it’s (probably) going to be longer.
To load shed or not to load shed
Over the weekend Eskom brought us up two stages, hitting stage 6 yesterday in the early hours of the morning. Unfortunately, it looks like stage 6 will stick around for a while. Jan Oberholzer, Eskom’s COO, said; “Stage 6 will remain implemented until sufficient generating units return to service. We are not yet able to make a firm commitment when we can ease the current stage of load shedding.”
Eskom said that generating units at both the Kusile and Kriel power stations went down, which sparked the move to stage 6. The power provider is currently working hard – which isn’t saying much – to bring back at least 18 generating units over the week ahead.
Read More: How I escaped Eskom’s load shedding – with batteries and solar
Problem is: Eskom is running units that are known to have issues. Ten of them, to be exact. Those ten units represent 6,000MW of power and could go down at any point during the week. If we do eventually drop a stage or two, it’s likely we’ll still see a return to stage 6 load shedding next week.
Here’s where you can access the Stage 6 schedules for major areas in South Africa:
- City of Johannesburg
- City of Ekurhuleni
- City of Cape Town
- City of Tshwane
- Nelson Mandela Bay
- Buffalo City
- eThekwini
Source: TechCentral