Cape Town – While construction workers continued their stay-away at Medupi power station on Monday, the risk of load shedding throughout the week was highly likely, according to Eskom.
Construction workers continued their stay-away in solidarity with about 1 700 workers who were fired or faced disciplinary action following a March 25 strike, the National Union of Metalworkers of SA (Numsa) said.
Steve Nhlapo, head of collective bargaining at Numsa, on Monday told Fin24 that Medupi’s construction site was shut down.
Nhlapo said Numsa and Eskom’s Medupi leadership were about to meet to discuss the situation, and that there would be an update at 16:00.
Engineers told Eskom’s leadership on Monday that the system would be highly constrained for the entire week due to planned and unplanned maintenance, Eskom spokesperson Khulu Phasiwe told Fin24.
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Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday set for load shedding
Friday’s Eskom update indicated that there would only be 29 991 MW to cope with Monday’s 31 380 MW, indicating that load shedding would be necessary.
Tuesday and Wednesday had similar forecasts, with 30 381 MW capacity to meet Tuesday’s 31 445 MW demand and 30 381 MW to meet Wednesday’s 31 596 MW.
These forecasts would be updated later on Monday.