South African state utility Eskom announced that due to the increase in generation unit breakdowns, the company will implement Stage 2 loadshedding starting Friday for a period of 10 hours, beginning at 12:00 and ending at 22: 00. This loadshedding has been caused by an increase in plant breakdowns exceeding 3 000MW of capacity. Eskom is working hard to return as many of these generation units to service.
“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 loadshedding. 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,” Eskom said in a statement.
These removed more than 3,000 MW of capacity from the system. The delayed return to service of a generation unit at the Duvha power station has also added significant pressure to the generation system.
Eskom urged the public to continue reducing electricity usage to help it minimize loadshedding and added this constrained supply situation may persist throughout the weekend.
“We also request the public to reduce electricity usage between 16:00 and 22:00 in order to assist us in limiting the incidence of loadshedding. 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 recover from this much quicker,” the statement added.