South Africans must steel themselves for higher load shedding phases. Eskom announced on Tuesday that phase 4 load shedding will kick in at 14:00 and will apply until Wednesday at 05:00, after which phase 3 and phase 4 load shedding will be introduced alternately until further notice.
According to the power supplier, the reduced generation capacity, as well as the continued high demand for electricity (about 33,000 MW) required the increased use of open cycle gas turbines (OCGTs) and pumped storage generation during the last 36 hours.
To preserve the emergency reserves, higher load shedding phases are introduced.
The varying phases apply until further notice.
At this stage, 16,313 MW of generation capacity is unavailable due to breakdowns and another 3,478 MW is unavailable due to planned maintenance work.
At the Arnot, Matla and Medupi power plants, generating units were brought back online in the last 24 hours, but at the same time a unit at the Matla power plant and two units at the Kriel power plant had to be taken out of service due to problems.
The delay in the return of a generating unit at Kendal and two generating units at Tutuka contributes to the current capacity constraints.
