Today is the 100th day of blackouts this year

14 September 2022 - 11:16 By Rene Vollgraaff
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Eskom is struggling to meet electricity demand because its old and poorly maintained power stations continually break down. File photo.
Eskom is struggling to meet electricity demand because its old and poorly maintained power stations continually break down. File photo.
Image: Bloomberg

Eskom has implemented power cuts on 100 days in 2022, with more to come.

The state-owned electricity utility ramped up outages to stage4 load-shedding, where it removes 4,000MW from the grid, on Tuesday after three generation units at its Kendal coal-fired station about 100km east of Johannesburg tripped.

The utility expects to reduce this to 2,000MW from Thursday until the end of the week.

That will bring the total days of outages in the third quarter to 40, Bloomberg calculations show. 

Eskom is struggling to meet electricity demand because its old and poorly maintained power stations continually break down. The energy shortages are weighing on business confidence and output, and contributed to a 0.7% quarter-on-quarter contraction in the economy in the three months through June.

President Cyril Ramaphosa announced steps in July to encourage private power generation to supplement supply from renewable sources.

Eskom COO Jan Oberholzer warned the plans may not deliver results for the next 12 months or so.

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com


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