This decision comes after a loss of 2 700MW of power generation in the past 14 hours. This includes Koeberg Unit Two, which was taken offline after being brought back on Wednesday, and two Kusile units where coal operations went sub-optimal following adverse weather in the area.
The constrained capacity resulted in the increased reliance on emergency reserves during this week, which makes it necessary to focus on replenishing these critical resources during the weekend in preparation for the business week.
Eskom is focussed on deploying extra engineering resources to expedite the repair of units currently offline. It is anticipated that 6 200MW will be restored to service by Monday’s evening peak.
“We reiterate our commitment to ensuring that South Africa is in no way returning to the levels of loadshedding that we experienced in 2023. Two years into delivering the generation recovery plan that will bring an end to loadshedding, we are at a challenging time and the full force of our engineering resources are deployed and focussed,” said Eskom’s head of generation, Bheki Nxumalo.
“Loadshedding is a painful reminder of the past and situations such as this drive our resolve to double down and stay the course to end loadshedding. We maintain that loadshedding is largely behind us due to structural improvements in the generation fleet,” says Eskom’s head of the generation division, Bheki Nxumalo.
