High risk of load shedding later on Friday, warns Eskom

File picture: Antoine de Ras/Independent Media.

File picture: Antoine de Ras/Independent Media.

Published Nov 8, 2019

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Cape Town - Embattled power utility Eskom has warned that while load shedding was terminated at 5am on Friday morning, the system remained extremely constrained and vulnerable and that there was a high risk of load shedding later on Friday.

"We will need to continue to replenish both our water levels at pumped storage schemes and diesel for our open cycle gas turbines over the weekend in order to place us in a better position to stabilise for the week ahead," it said.

"Our objective remains not to implement load shedding during the day today, however given the unplanned breakdowns that are still above 10 500 MW and the need to continue to replenish emergency reserves, the probability of load shedding remains high for the latter part of the day but will only be implemented if absolutely necessary."

It pleaded with consumers to use electricity sparingly.

Eskom said it would communicate an update later on Friday.

On Thursday evening Eskom announced that it would implement Stage 2 load shedding from 22pm until the early hours of Friday morning.

"Eskom will implement stage 2 rotational load shedding this evening from 22:00 until 05:00 tomorrow morning," the power utility said.

It said it had lost three generations units earlier in the day and had to use emergency reserves throughout.

"As a result our emergency reserves are now at critically low levels and need to be replenished overnight in order to meet tomorrow’s forecasted demand in electricity. 

Stage 2 load shedding allows for 2 000 MW of power to be load shed on a rotational basis. 

African News Agency (ANA)

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