Eskom says it managed to bring back the generating units that tripped on Friday night and threatened the return of load shedding on Saturday. The power utility said load shedding has since been averted for the weekend. Seven of its generation units broke down on Friday night.
“Through hard work and dedication, with a clear focus to understand what went wrong last night, Eskom teams have managed to recover some generation units and avert the possibility of loadshedding for this weekend,” said Eskom.
The power utility also said that it’s replenishing its emergency reserves for the coming week, meaning less probability of load shedding this week, if no major breakdowns take place.
On Saturday morning, Eskom which has not implemented load shedding since 22 February, said while it did not expect to implement load shedding this weekend, generation units at four power stations – Duvha, Tutuka, Kriel and Grootvlei – broke down overnight on Friday, increasing probability of power cuts from Saturday night.
But in a power update, Eskom said four generation units would return to service on Saturday tonight which would help increase available generation reserve capacity and ease the pressure on the rest of its power stations.
Unplanned breakdowns stood at 11 027MW on Saturday evening and planned maintenance outages are at 5 435MW. The utility said its electricity generating the system however, remains “constrained, vulnerable and unpredictable”, and load shedding may be implemented at short notice if there are unexpected changes in the generation system performance.
Compiled by Londiwe Buthelezi
