ESKOM on Tuesday appealed to South Africans to help avoid the implementation of loadshedding by reducing the usage of electricity, saying the power system is severely constrained.
The debt-burdened power utility said there is no loadshedding currently being implemented, however, since the weekend, there have been numerous generating unit breakdowns at various power stations.
“This has required Eskom to utilise significant amounts of emergency generation reserves, which under the current constrained system, is difficult to replenish,” Eskom said.
#POWERALERT 1
— Eskom Hld SOC Ltd (@Eskom_SA) February 1, 2022
Eskom requests the public to reduce the usage of electricity as the power system is severely constrained pic.twitter.com/jSHLWtMLRO
Eskom said some of these units have since returned to service, but four other generating units that failed are still offline.
“A unit each at Matimba and Hendrina suffered a boiler tube leak, while a unit each at Majuba and Kendal tripped. Delays in returning units at Kusile, Tutuka, Duvha and Grootvlei have also contributed to the supply constraints.
“Total breakdowns amount to 14 134MW while planned maintenance is 5 028MW of capacity as we continue with the reliability maintenance.”
The power utility warned that loadshedding might be implemented at short notice if there is any further loss of generation capacity.
“We will communicate promptly should there be any significant changes to the power system,” Eskom said. | IOL