Eskom’s burning diesel, pumping water again to avoid load shedding

In today’s edition of “What’s New?”, Eskom is still struggling to avoid load shedding in South Africa this week.

After it issued a dire update on Tuesday, it confirmed that on Wednesday the risk of load shedding seemed even more likely.

“The power system remains severely constrained this moring with unplanned breakdowns above 12 000MW,” began the statement.

POWER ALERT 1
Date: 06 November 2019

The system remains very constrained today.@CityPowerJhb@City_Ekurhuleni @CityTshwane @eThekwiniM @CityofCT @OtpLimpopo @MpumalangaGov @News24 pic.twitter.com/nirwQwFU8c

— Eskom Hld SOC Ltd (@Eskom_SA) November 6, 2019

This is far above Eskom’s desired goal of 9500MW.

It noted that some units that were down earlier this week returned to service on Wednesday morning, the improvements were not enough “to meet the current demand”.

As a result, Eskom’s resorting to emergency measures.

“Eskom has since Monday, increased its usage of its pumped storage and diesel generators to keep the lights on. The extensive use has led to a decline in the pumped storage water and diesel levels and a concerted effort is being made to replenish these reserves,” it bleakly continued.

Importantly, this means that should any other issues befall one of the utility’s plants, load shedding would almost certainly be implemented.

Despite today’s bad news, Eskom has not implemented load shedding in three weeks.

The utility noted that an update will be made later on Wednesday.

Feature image: Media Club via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0, resized)