Load-shedding will be reduced to stage 3 during the evenings from Thursday and throughout the weekend, Eskom said after PetroSA provided millions of litres of diesel.

On Wednesday, public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan told parliament state-owned PetroSA has made 50-million litres of diesel available to Eskom, which announced last week it had run out of funds to buy fuel for its open-cycle gas turbines.

The reduction to stage 3 is from 4pm until 5am, until Monday morning.

Eskom said daytime load-shedding will remain at stage 2 from 5am to 4pm daily until further notice.

“The continued implementation of load-shedding is mainly due to the high levels of breakdowns and the limited emergency generation reserves.”

Since Wednesday afternoon, a generating unit each at Grootvlei, Kendal and Tutuka power stations were taken offline for repairs.

Four units at Camden power station had also been taken offline to repair a water leak on a line that supplies auxiliary cooling water.

Three units at Kusile power station had been offline due to the duct (chimney structure) failure late in October and will remain offline for a few months while repairs are made.

Eskom said a generating unit at Hendrina power station was returned to service.

Unit 1 at Koeberg nuclear power station will continue to generate at a reduced output over the next three weeks as fuel is ramped down before the refuelling and maintenance outage scheduled to start in December.

“We have 6,000MW on planned maintenance while 14,160MW is unavailable due to breakdowns.”

TimesLIVE