Falling water pressure and vandalism have been reported during load-shedding, as Eskom on Sunday advised that stage 2 power cuts would continue on Monday.
The power utility said it would reduce load-shedding to stage one from 11pm on Sunday until 5am on Monday, but that the return to service of some generation units had been delayed.
“Stage 2 load-shedding will be implemented from 5am tomorrow morning [Monday]. The system remains constrained and vulnerable, and Eskom will give a further update on the power situation tomorrow morning,” the power utility said in a statement.
Eskom said the return to service of two generation units at Kusile power station that were not available last week had been delayed due to difficulties in restarting the units. They were expected to return to service on Monday.
“Over the past 24 hours, Eskom teams have successfully returned a generation unit each at the Kriel, Grootvlei and Duvha power stations to service.”
Eskom said despite putting stringent measures in place to manage the impact of the second wave of Covid-19 on operations, it was experiencing challenges, including with suppliers.
“For example, at the Medupi power station, we have had 48 positive cases out of a pool of 75 contractors, which has negatively affected our ability to execute work as planned,” said the power utility.
“We currently have 6,384MW on planned maintenance, while another 13,181MW of capacity is unavailable due to planned maintenance, breakdowns and the outage delays mentioned above.”
Meanwhile, Johannesburg City Power said it had dispatched its team to attend to multiple outages affecting Alexandra.
“While the cause of some of the faults is still to be determined, many are due to vandalism of the infrastructure during load-shedding,” said City Power spokesperson Isaac Mangena in a statement.
Areas without power include: 4th to 16th avenue; extensions 7, 8, 9; parts of Kew, and parts of Bramley.
“We also have vandalism of our infrastructure during load-shedding, with two mini substations vandalised at 4th avenue Joe Nhlanhla, and at number 38 1st avenue, leaving the community without power.”
eThekwini municipality also announced that load-shedding had crippled operations at Umgeni Water.
“Due to load-shedding, Umgeni Water, an entity that supplies the city with water, is battling to pump it to numerous eThekwini reservoirs,” the municipality said on its Twitter page.
Areas affected are: Ntuzuma, Etafuleni, Katzkop, and Mountview.
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