Eskom’s emergency reserves depleted

South Africans will have to contend with rolling blackouts from Wednesday morning until Sunday evening.

Eskom has announced that load shedding will come into effect from 10am on Wednesday until 10pm on Sunday “due to delays in returning generating units”. This is confined to Kusile, Tutuka, Duvha, Kendal and Koeberg power stations.

“In addition, these constraints have been exacerbated by the high winter demand throughout the day over the past few days as brought about by the colder temperatures,” the ailing power utility says in a statement.

With no emergency reserves, turning the lights off is the only option. “The emergency reserves have been used extensively in the past days to avoid load shedding during the day. This has resulted in these being depleted, reducing available capacity,” the power supplier says.

Eskom warns that these constraints will continue for the foreseeable future and rolling blackouts are therefore here to stay.

Load shedding was escalated to Stage 4 from 2pm until 10pm on Wednesday, after which it was scheduled to revert to Stage 2. However, Eskom has announced that it will implement Stage 3 load shedding on Thursday.

“Although there is a slight improvement in generation performance today (Wednesday), we have unfortunately had further breakdowns at Kusile Matla and Tutuka power stations. Regretfully, this means Eskom has to implement Stafe 3 load shedding from 8am until 10pm on Thursday,” Eskom says in a statement.

Read the full story on: News24 City Press.