Load shedding may potentially continue until August. This was announced by Khaya Magaxa, the chairperson of Parliament’s portfolio committee on Public Enterprises, during a radio interview.
Magaxa said: “When we had a session with the [Public Enterprises ] department recently, we were informed that we will be having load shedding until end of August,” during the interview on Sunday, February 7.
Magaxa cited old equipment and a shortage of advanced local technicians at Kusile, a coal-fired power plant currently under construction, as part of the reason behind the extended loadshedding. Many of technicians operate across the globe and Eskom is now struggling to get them into the country due to travel restrictions and the financial costs of procuring them.
Last week, load shedding was implemented for multiple days after five generating units were forcibly shut down at the Medupi Power Station as a result of the inability to get coal from the units due to the heavy rain in the Lephalale area on Thursday night [February 4].
On Sunday, Eskom suspended load shedding but said the system will continue to be constrained and the risk of load shedding remains elevated.
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