Eskom’s Chief Operating Officer has announced that South African can expect load shedding to take place throughout the remainder of the week. This is as a result of constraints to the public enterprise’s power generation system.
Speaking to 702, Jan Oberholtzer – Chief Operating Officer – said that power supply constraints may result in a number of unplanned breakdowns.
“At this point in time realistically, we believe load shedding may continue for the next week,” he said. “Should the system improve, obviously we will relieve load-shedding wherever we can.”
In a previous statement, Eskom had attributed the power cuts to five generating units being unavailable as a result of bioler tube leaks.
“In addition, a conveyor belt supplying Medupi power station with coal failed on Saturday (12 October) resulting in low volumes of coal being supplied to the power station thus limiting the generating capacity to approximately half the station output.”
Eskom has assured its customers that it would keep them informed of any further challenges to the power system.
“We unreservedly apologise to South Africans for the negative impact this may have on them and want to assure the nation that we continue to work tirelessly to ensure the security of energy supply.”
“Stage 2 active between 9am – 11pm for Eskom-supplied customers, and Stage 1 active from 10am until further notice for City-supplied customers. Check the schedule for times and areas affected, and be prepared for outages,” the City of Cape Town said.
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