Cape Town – Eskom says due to a supply of diesel provided by PetroSA this week, power outages will be reduced to stage 3 on Thursday night.
On Thursday afternoon, Eskom said because of the diesel bailout by PetroSA this week, it will be reducing load shedding during the night to Stage 3 from Stage 4 at 16:00 – 05:00 until Monday.
The announcement comes after the cash-strapped power utility Eskom had increased outages because of depleted diesel reserves.
Although the power utility had said load shedding would be eased, it further highlighted that daytime load shedding would be maintained at Stage 2 during 05:00 – 16:00 daily until further notice.
In a statement, Eskom’s spokesperson, Sikonathi Mantshantsha, said the continuing implementation of load shedding was mainly due to the high levels of breakdowns and the limited emergency generation reserves.
“Since Wednesday afternoon a generating unit each at Grootvlei, Kendal and Tutuka power stations were taken off line for repairs. Four units at Camden Power Station have also been taken off line to repair a water leak on a line that supplies auxiliary cooling water and the generating unit at Hendrina Power Station was returned to service.
“Three units at Kusile Power Station are offline due to the duct (chimney structure) failure late in October and will remain offline for a few months while repairs to the chimney system take place,” he said.
He added that Unit 1 of Koeberg Nuclear Power Station would continue to generate at a reduced output over the next three weeks as the fuel was ramped down before the refuelling and maintenance outage scheduled to commence in December.
Mantshatsha also said they currently had 6 000 MW on planned maintenance, while another 14 160 MW of capacity were unavailable due to breakdowns.
Meanwhile, the The South African National Energy Association had said that the government must quickly find money to purchase diesel in order to keep lights on.
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