Update: 7.30am, Friday 6 December: Eskom has announced that Stage 2 load shedding will continue for another 21 hours, beginning at 9am Friday ending at 6am Saturday.
“As the generating plant continues to perform at low levels of reliability, our technical teams were unable to return units from planned or unplanned maintenance as scheduled,” it said in an update on Friday morning.
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“With units not returning, we were unable to replenish water reserves overnight for our pumped storage schemes.”
Date: 6 December 2019
Stage 2 loadshedding will continue today from 09:00 until 06:00 on Saturday, 7 December 2019
@@News24 @CityPowerJhb @City_Ekurhuleni @CityTshwane @CityofCT @eThekwiniM @CityofJoburgZA @TrafficSA @ewnupdates @SABCNewsOnline @SAfmRadio @IOL pic.twitter.com/5gDOPTEI8t
— Eskom Hld SOC Ltd (@Eskom_SA) December 6, 2019
Original article: More load shedding could be on the cards for South Africans on Friday, after power utility Eskom announced that its system remains “severely constrained”.
Late on Thursday, Eskom announced an extension to its Stage 2 load shedding which it announced earlier that day.
It had been the first implementation of rolling blackouts in a month.
Although power cuts were supposed to cease at 11pm Thursday having been implemented from 4pm, Eskom extended it through 5am on Friday.
In a release explaining the above, it noted that unplanned breakdowns are now “above 12 500MW”.
#POWERALERT 3
Date: 05 December 2019Rotational loadsheddding continues until 05:00 tomorrow (06 December 2019) @SABCNewsOnline@eNCA @IOL @SAgovnews @TheCitizen_News @News24 @SowetanLIVE @CityPowerJhb @City_Ekurhuleni @CityTshwane @CityofCT @eThekwiniM @CityofJoburgZA pic.twitter.com/gH5ccT4ebY
— Eskom Hld SOC Ltd (@Eskom_SA) December 5, 2019
While the power utility terminated load shedding at 5am as promised, there remains a high chance of more power cuts across South Africa today and through the weekend.
It believes it has sufficient diesel reserves for its emergency gas turbines, it does not have the same confidence in its pumped storage levels. It called the situation “critical”.
Will there be load shedding on Friday?
It’s not yet clear if power cuts will continue on Friday. The utility has yet to issue an update, but the chances are definitely higher today than usual. Eskom calls the chances “very high”.
In preparation, be sure to find your load shedding schedule for your city or municipality here, or download this nifty little app for alerts.
Feature image: Kelly Sikkema via Unsplash
