Eskom announces reduction of load shedding
South Africa, Johannesburg: Eskom announced reduction of load shedding on Sunday, 17 January 2021.
Image for illustration purposes
South Africa, Johannesburg: Eskom announced reduction of load shedding on Sunday, 17 January 2021.
The company regrets that due to delayed return to service of some generation units has been delayed, as well as the need to manage the emergency generation reserves and identified risks to the power system, Stage 2 load shedding is to be implemented as of Monday, 18 January at 5:00 a.m. The system remains constrained and vulnerable, and Eskom will give a further update on the power situation on the same day afternoon.
The return to service of two generation units at Kusile power station that were not available last week has been delayed due to difficulties in restarting the units, which are now expected to return to service starting 18 January.
Over the past 24 hours Eskom teams have successfully returned a generation unit each at the Kriel, Grootvlei and Duvha power stations to service.
Eskom states that despite their stringent measures to manage the impact of the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic on the operations, they are experiencing some impact on operations, including their suppliers.
The company currently has 6,384 MW on planned maintenance, while another 13,181 MW of capacity is unavailable due to unplanned maintenance, breakdowns and the outage delays mentioned above. Eskom personnel are working hard to return as much of this capacity to service as soon as possible.
Eskom would like to urge the public to reduce electricity consumption in order to help minimise load shedding.