South Africa’s troubled state-owned power utility Eskom on Saturday apologised to its consumers nationwide for the scheduled load-shedding this weekend and that of next week due to constraints in some units’ inability to perform as expected.
“Eskom apologises for the continued and unfortunate load-shedding which is implemented only as a last resort in view of the shortage of generation capacity and the need to attend to breakdowns,” the utility said in a statement.
Eskom added: “While some generation units are anticipated to return to service, it is necessary to continue the load-shedding to limit the use of emergency generation reserves.”
According to the power utility, it had 5,839MW on planned maintenance, while another 15,745MW was unavailable due to breakdowns.”
Eskom said while some generation units were anticipated to return to service, it was necessary to continue load-shedding to limit the use of emergency generation reserves.
“Load-shedding over the weekend will be used to replenish pumped storage dam levels,” Eskom said.
The power utility announced that load-shedding continued to Stage 5 on Saturday morning, and thereafter lowered to Stage 4 until 5am on Sunday.
Stage 3 would then be implemented until 5am on Monday, it added.
Indications were that Stage 3 load-shedding would be implemented for most of next week due to capacity constraints, Eskom said.
NM/as/APA