Eskom warns of more blackouts
South Africa’s power utility Eskom said yesterday that they are well and truly under pressure to provide the country with electricity this week, and announced that Stage 2 load shedding will continue today, September 2, as they battle to keep several power stations online.
Worse still, they said that the problems they are dealing with are so severe that there is every likelihood that they may need to escalate their load shedding programme from Stage 2 to more restrictive levels at the drop of a hat in order to ensure that the grid’s integrity is maintained.
In a statement released on yesterday, Eskom said that they are battling a plethora of technical difficulties.
“Due to the continuing severe generation supply constraints as a result of multiple-unit breakdowns, Eskom will continue to implement Stage 2 load shedding from 8:00 until 22:00 tomorrow,” they said.
They again said that their infrastructure is badly maintained and feeling the aches and pains of old age.
“Ten generation units at seven power stations suffered breakdowns in the past two days,” they said.
“With the unreliable and aged generation infrastructure, together with a number of risks on running units, there is a high probability that additional stages of load shedding may be implemented at short notice.” — The South African.