Blackouts ahead

Eskom has urged the public to reduce electricity usage to help prevent load shedding, which began at Stage 2 yesterday at noon.

“Due to the increase in generation unit breakdowns, Eskom regrets to inform the country that it will implement Stage 2 load shedding starting at 12am. This will continue until 10pm.

“Eskom is working hard to return as many of these generation units to service,” the power utility said in a statement.

“While five generation units were taken off the grid last night and this morning, a breakdown at the Matimba power station has today resulted in the need for load shedding.

“Two units at the Arnot power station, as well as a unit each at Kendal, Tutuka and Majuba were taken off the grid last night and this morning.”

The delayed return to service of a generation unit at the Duvha power station had also added significant pressure to the generation system. “This constrained supply situation may persist throughout the weekend.

“Over the past two evenings, the help of the public assisted us in avoiding the need for load shedding. With your help, Eskom can again pull through without load shedding.”

Meanwhile, Eskom chief executive officer Andre de Ruyter has said load shedding was likely over the next year. He was speaking on the challenges Eskom faced in supplying electricity to South Africa on 702’s The

Money Show.

He said Eskom had to do urgent “reliability maintenance” at its older power stations. “Older stations will have to be offline for long periods when being maintained.

“The system is old and it needs to be repaired as it suffers from a lack of predictability.”

De Ruyter said the maintenance should be completed by the end of August next year.

He added that this week, a unit at the new Medupi station tripped. Eskom has started to repair design flaws at all 12 units at Medupi and Kusile stations at a cost of R300 million per unit.

De Ruyter added that South Africa was in a rush when the new plants were commissioned: “We took an off-the-shelf design and are now paying the price in terms of a plant not suited to coal.” –