Load-shedding to move to stage 1 on Friday, with brief reprieve tonight

18 November 2021 - 10:15
By Shonisani Tshikalange
Eskom CEO André de Ruyter.
Image: Freddy Mavunda Eskom CEO André de Ruyter.

The current round of stage two load-shedding is expected to be lifted at 9pm on Thursday, then resume at stage one on Friday morning.

Eskom group CEO André de Ruyter, briefing SA on the state of the grid on Thursday morning, said the outlook for the weekend is stable. 

“We have been able to recover both our dams and diesel level. Our intent is that we will lift load-shedding tonight at 21:00. We will, however, resume load-shedding at stage 1 by 5am tomorrow morning, which at this time is expected to continue until 21:00 Friday evening. This is subject to the units returning that we have indicated: Matumba 2, Matla 6 and Tuthuka 4.”

De Ruyter said: “Planned maintenance units on outage amounts to 3,910MW, we have full unplanned losses of 8,900MW and partial losses of 4,901MW which gives you total unplanned losses of 13,991MW, which is very high.” 

Although he said they were successful in returning a number of units to service, Medupi 3, which had returned, had tripped again. 

TimesLIVE