Eskom load sheds for a second day as country gets colder

15 July 2015 - 11:22 By RDM News Wire

Load shedding went into a second day after its three-day hiatus. Eskom‚ via its Twitter account Eskom Hld SOC Ltd ‏@Eskom_SA‚ annonced: “#Eskom regrets to announce that Stage 1 #load_shedding will be implemented from 08:30 to 22:00 today.”It used its other Twitter account - Eskom Media Desk ‏@Eskom_MediaDesk - to elaborate:“Due to increased electricity demand and a shortage of generation capacity resulting from low diesel levels at our open cycle gas turbines”.That followed Tuesday outages‚ which the utility started at 5pm‚ following its prediction earlier in the day that the “probability of #load_shedding is…high for this evening”.In the same tweet‚ Eskom said: “DYK [did you know] @Eskom_SA has not #load_shedding for 3 consecutive days”.Eskom had started the week on a good note on Monday‚ saying the “power system is currently stable”‚ and the power utility would be to able “to perform maintenance without load shedding”.It acknowledged‚ though‚ that the system would “constrained during the evening peak period mainly as a result of increased electricity demand”.This was because of the “cold weather conditions across the country”.Temperatures in South Africa are predicted to persist at current levels and then dip as the weekend approaches.In all load shedding statements‚ Eskom says it “will provide regular updates on the status of the power system through all the media platforms”.Wednesday morning’s notice was not good enough for the power company’s Twitter follower Donn Edwards ‏@donnedwards‚ who posted: “@Eskom_SA So why couldn't you announce this 2 hours ago? You guys really are clueless”..

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