Cape Town - The City of Cape Town customers will have to wait a while longer before finding out if they will be shielded from one stage of load shedding after Eskom announced Stage 2 load shedding on Tuesday.
The struggling power utility announced that load shedding will be implemented from 4pm on Tuesday until 5am on Wednesday, with a possibility of load shedding throughout the week.
The company said in a statement that the load shedding follows after breakdowns of generating units at Kriel, Arnot, Majuba and Tutuka Power Stations over the past 24 hours, as well as delays in returning units to service at Duvha and Tutuka Power Stations.
“This load shedding will also assist to replenish the emergency generation reserves, which have been utilised extensively over the past three weeks to avoid load shedding during the day,” Eskom said.
It added that “breakdowns currently total 15 360MW of capacity, while another 1 580MW is unavailable due to planned maintenance.”
Eskom did add that some generation units are expected to return to service on Tuesday evening, which would help ease the strain.
However, the City said that it cannot yet say on what stage its customers will be as they are investigating generation capacity.
Eskom has announced Stage 2 load-shedding from 16:00 today.
— City of Cape Town (@CityofCT) June 1, 2021
The City is investigating its generation capacity and will update customers during the afternoon, as soon as it is clear if there are any options available to protect our customers.
Updates will follow. #CTInfo pic.twitter.com/BQtSvgaVYn
Mayor Dan Plato previously reiterated that the City has been working towards providing more affordable, reliable and cleaner energy to residents in Cape Town and in South Africa with its push to procure power directly from Independent Power Producers.
“Load shedding has been negatively impacting the ability of the economy to grow and limits much-needed job creation. The Covid-19 pandemic has further hit a struggling national economy; I therefore urge the National Minister to provide us with the clarity we need to proceed with the procurement from IPPs.”
City of Cape Town customers can see if they are being affected by power cuts here: