Cape Town - While the country prepares to face stage 2 load shedding from midday on Friday until Sunday evening, the City of Cape Town said its customers will be on stage 1.
On Friday morning, the power utility said that it has to “regrettably” inform the public that stage 2 load shedding will be implemented.
“The load shedding has been exacerbated by the forced shutdown of five generating units at the Medupi Power Station as a result of the inability to get coal into the units due to the heavy rain in the Lephalale area last night.
“The area experienced 65mm of rain, which added to the constraints caused by the heavy rains due to cyclone storm Eloise over the past two weeks,” Eskom said.
The power-supplier said that it has implemented contingency plans and deployed additional resources and that teams are urgently at work to return as many of these units to service.
“We currently have 4 114MW on planned maintenance, while another 15 739MW of capacity is unavailable due to unplanned maintenance.”
While the country will be on stage 2, the City of Cape Town said that residents will be on stage 1.
“Following Eskom's announcement of load-shedding, the City will protect its customers this weekend.
“City-supplied customers will be on stage 1 while Eskom-supplied customers will be on stage 2 between 12:00 today, 5 February 2021, and Sunday evening,“ the City said on Twitter.
Following Eskom's announcement of load-shedding, the City will protect its customers this weekend.
— City of Cape Town (@CityofCT) February 5, 2021
City-supplied customers will be on Stage 1 while Eskom-supplied customers will be on Stage 2 between 12:00 today, 5 February 2021, and Sunday evening.#CTInfo pic.twitter.com/mvmwhPitYS
Eskom has also urged the public to reduce its electricity usage in order to help them minimize load shedding.
“The system remains vulnerable and unpredictable. Load shedding is implemented as a last resort in order to protect the integrity of the system.
“Eskom will communicate timeously should there be any significant changes to the power system.”
City of Cape Town’s customers can see the map below to know when it will be affected:
Cape Argus