It won’t last much longer, promises the power utility
AS SOUTH Africans continue to complain about the ongoing load shedding, Eskom has promised that the experience will not last much longer.
On Saturday, the power utility said due to an unanticipated conveyor belt failure at Medupi power station, the system was severely constrained and vulnerable.
“While a number of units are being brought back on line following repairs and maintenance, it is essential to implement Stage 2 load shedding… This is in order to help us replenish our water levels at pumped storage schemes and diesel for our open cycle gas turbines in order to create adequate reserve capacity to place us in a better position to stabilise for the week ahead as South Africa returns to work.”
Yesterday, the load shedding continued after the conveyor belt failure at Medupi was repaired.
“This incident, however, as well as a loss of additional generation units caused us to have to deplete our diesel and pump storage levels, which we need to restore as we head into the working week on Monday.” Meanwhile, on social media people have been complaining about the schedule not being accurate.
In areas like Parkrand, Sunward Park and Freeway Park the load shedding took place from around 9am to 1pm, only to cut off again 5 minutes later.
In areas including Honeydew and Zandspruit, north of Joburg, load shedding went on for longer than the Stage 2 four-hour mark.
One tweeter complained about the schedule’s lack of accuracy affecting his business.
“It is sad that the small business is hit the hardest with the load shedding.
Kya Sands Industrial Park has experienced load shedding for four hours. I have a milk business and a cold room with 5 000 litres of milk to be delivered tomorrow.”
Last month, President Cyril Ramaphosa said, at an Eskom briefing for load shedding, that there would be a recovery plan that would make sure that load shedding would be a thing of the past.
“Management has given us an assurance that they are trying to stabilise the system and get more of the megawatts we have lost to be restored.
“They have given us the assurance that from December 17 to January 13 we should not be in a position to have any form of load-shedding. And going right through to March they will be seeking to do everything they can to restore the stability of the network.”
However, according to energy analyst Chris Yelland, South Africans can expect to be hit by “intermittent” load shedding for at least the next two to three years.
In an interview with the Saturday Star he said: “South Africa will experience intermittent load shedding and this could continue for some time.”
Eskom said load shedding was due to inadequate maintenance over a number of years: “Load shedding is an essential and controlled measure to ensure continuity of supply.”