South Africa’s power utility, Eskom, has announced the implementation of Stage 3 load shedding starting Friday, March 7, to replenish emergency reserves following a significant loss in generation capacity.
This was disclosed in a statement by Eskom’s Group Executive for Generation, Bheki Numalo, who said the power cuts will last until Monday, March 10, at 05:00.
Eskom reported that 2,700 megawatts (MW) of electricity were lost over the past 14 hours due to multiple unit failures, including the shutdown of Koeberg Unit 2, which was taken offline just days after being brought back into operation.
Additionally, two Kusile units experienced coal related issues following adverse weather conditions.
“The constrained capacity resulted in an increased reliance on emergency reserves during the week, making it necessary to focus on replenishing these critical resources over the weekend,” Numalo said.
Higher levels of planned maintenance, which are part of Eskom’s winter preparation strategy and regulatory compliance, have also contributed to the tight supply.
Eskom stated that 6,200MW is expected to be restored to the grid by Monday’s evening peak, easing pressure on the system.
Eskom’s recovery efforts and load shedding outlook
On his part, Eskom’s Group Chief Executive, Dan Marokane, assured South Africans that despite the setback, the utility remains committed to its generation recovery plan aimed at ending load shedding in the long term.
“We are deploying additional engineering resources to speed up the return of offline units,” Marokane said. “While baseload capacity remains constrained, achieving a stable energy availability factor of 65%–70% will significantly reduce the risk of load shedding.”
Marokane also noted that load shedding has been suspended for 325 days (7,871 hours) in the current financial year compared to just 32 days (2,103 hours) during the same period last year.
“We maintain that the worst of load shedding is behind us due to structural improvements in the generation fleet,” he added.
Eskom further assured the public that it will continue to monitor the situation and provide updates as necessary.
