Eskom to ramp up power cuts to Stage 4 from Wednesday through Friday
Eskom said that the move to stage four was because a generating unit each at Medupi, Kusile and the Matla power stations had tripped while a unit each at Arnot and Lethabo were forced to shut down.
Eskom will implement stage four power cuts from midday on Wednesday until 5am on Friday morning.
The power utility was already implementing stage 2 power cuts when it ramped up the rolling blackouts to stage 4.
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Stage four means that 4,000 megawatts must be shed from the grid to safeguard South Africa’s fragile power system.
In the last 24 hours, a generating unit at each of the Medupi, Kusile and Matla power stations tripped while there were forced shutdowns at the Arnot and Lethabo power plants as well.
Stage four power cuts will continue at least until Friday morning and the plan is to revert to stage 2 until Saturday.
Eskom spokesperson Sikonathi Mantshantsha: “This further constrained the power system by requiring the extensive use of emergency reserves and therefore hampering the recovery of these reserves. Some generation units have returned to service and we anticipate another two units to return to service during the day. Koeberg unit 1 has returned to service and will ramp-up to full capacity in the next 48 hours.”
Earlier this week, Eskom warned that delays in returning other units to service had exacerbated generation capacity constraints and that this was affecting the utility’s ability to replenish the emergency generation reserves.
Originally posted in Eye Witness News