Publications
Partners
Eskom says it managed to bring back the generating units that tripped on Friday night and threatened the return of load shedding on Saturday. But while the power utility says this allowed it to avert load shedding by Sunday morning, it has since experienced a surge in unplanned breakdowns. On Saturday, Eskom managed to bring back on line seven of its generation units that broke down on Friday night.
This saw nnplanned breakdowns stabilize at 11 027MW on Saturday evening and planned maintenance outages stood at 5 435MW. But by 11:30 on Sunday morning, the unplanned breakdowns increased to 12 077MW, said Eskom.
"The system is currently constrained, unpredictable and vulnerable. We are replenishing the emergency reserves in order to be in a better position to meet demand for the coming week, but there is still a high likelihood that loadshedding may be implemented today should there be further unexpected changes in the generation system performance.
"In this regard, the co-operation of every South African in managing electricity consumption
with care goes a long way in helping us minimize the likelihood of loadshedding," the utility said in a power update.
On Saturday evening, Eskom which has not implemented load shedding since 22 February, said it did not expect to implement load shedding this weekend after four of the seven generation units that had broken down at four of its power stations on overnight Friday – Duvha, Tutuka, Kriel and Grootvlei.
Even though Eskom said the return to service of these units would help increase available generation reserve capacity and ease the pressure on the rest of its power stations; it maintained that the electricity generating the system remained “constrained, vulnerable and unpredictable”, and that load shedding may be implemented at short notice if there are unexpected changes in the generation system performance.
Compiled by Londiwe Buthelezi
