Unplanned outages and breakdowns remain high, load-shedding continues to Sunday

Eskom will continue implementing Stage 2 rotational load-shedding until 6am Sunday, an additional day than was previously announced.

This is “owing to the unplanned breakdowns that increased the shortage in generation capacity,” the power utility said on Friday.

“While we expect three generation units to return to service today, we lost a further two units last night to unplanned breakdowns. Stage 2 load-shedding will be necessary on Saturday to replenish reserves to better prepare for the coming week.”

Unplanned outages or breakdowns were at 11,562MW as of 6.40am Friday, said Eskom, while planned maintenance was 5,O76MW.

“Emergency reserves are being utilised to supplement the shortage in capacity.

“The system remains unpredictable and constrained, and we remind customers that any shift on the system performance will require a change in the depth of load-shedding at short notice.

“Eskom also reminds South Africans that there is a possibility of increased load-shedding over the next 18 months as we are conducting critical maintenance to restore the ageing plants to good health. We request customers to continue to use electricity sparingly and to assist us in reducing demand.”

Here are some of the tips provided to electricity users by Eskom:

• Set air-conditioners’ average temperature at 23°C.
• Switch off your geysers over peak periods
• Use the cold water tap rather than using the geyser every time
• Set your swimming pool pump cycle to run twice a day, three hours at a time
• At the end of the day, turn off computers, copiers, printers and fax machines at the switch.