Rolling blackouts continue until Wednesday due to constrained generation capacity

The utility supplies the bulk of South Africa’s electricity, but has struggled to meet demand over the last decade, mainly as a result of its generating units frequently breaking after years of poor maintenance.

CAPE TOWN, March 14 (ANA) – South African utility Eskom on Sunday said rotational powercuts would be extended to 5am on Wednesday after the loss of further generation capacity and to replenish generation reserves.

“Eskom regrets to inform the public that the implementation of Stage 2 loadshedding will continue until 5am on Wednesday as the generation capacity is still severely constrained,” the power utility said in a statement.

“Over the past two days, Eskom teams successfully returned a generation unit each at the Matimba and Medupi power station. However, during the weekend we have suffered further breakdowns at five power stations, putting further strain on the generation capacity.”

Eskom said that additional breakdowns occurred at the Tutuka, Majuba, Kusile, Matimba and Duvha power stations which eadded to the breakdowns previously at the Kriel and Kendal power stations.

The power utility said it also had delays returning units to service at Hendrina, Duvha and restoring full load on the Cahora Bassa line.

“We currently have 6 545MW on planned maintenance, while another 12 915MW of capacity is unavailable due to breakdowns and delays. This has led to our inability to supply the demand,” Eskom said.

“Eskom is working hard to return the units back to service. Eskom will continue to assess and communicate promptly as the situation changes.”

Eskom reiterated that it would continue to implement “reliability maintenance” and said this meant the system would continue to be constrained, “with the possibility of loadshedding remaining elevated”.

The utility supplies the bulk of South Africa’s electricity, but has struggled to meet demand over the last decade, mainly as a result of its generating units frequently breaking down after years of poor maintenance.

On March 10, Eskom said it was forced to resume rotational powercuts from 5 pm on Wednesday until Friday night due to its generation capacity being severely constrained.

In a statement, the company said continued poor performance at its Kusile, Duvha and Tutuka power stations, as well as delays in returning some other units to service and breakdowns over the last week had caused the need to implement this loadshedding.

“Eskom has had to extensively utilise the emergency generation reserves, which are being rapidly depleted. This period of load shedding will be used to replenish the emergency generation reserves,” it said at the time.

Critics blame most of the state-owned company’s woes on mismanagement by former senior executives, some of whom have been implicated in corruption.

In a bid to turn around its fortunes, the government said in 2019 it would split Eskom’s business into three separate entities focusing on generation, transmission and distribution.

– African News Agency (ANA), Editing by Devereaux Morkel