Cape Town - After keeping Capetonians on Stage 2 until 5pm, the City has announced that its customers will move to Stage 3 with the rest of the country.
Late on Wednesday evening, Eskom confirmed that load shedding will be increased to Stage 3 from 8am today.
The power utility said although there has been a slight improvement in generation performance, there have been further breakdowns at the Kusile, Matla and Tutuka power stations.
“Stage 3 load shedding will be implemented from 8am until 10pm on Thursday. This is in order to continue replenishing the emergency generation reserves which have been depleted.
“These emergency reserves are required to respond to emergencies in order to maintain the stability of the national grid,” Eskom said.
Thereafter, Stage 2 load shedding will be implemented.
Meanwhile, the City of Cape Town had announced that its customers will be on Stage 2 until 5pm, and then provided an update in which it said that its customers will join the rest of South Africa on Stage 3.
Eskom will implement Stage 3 load-shedding from 08:00 to 22:00 on Thursday, as per an update received from Eskom.
— City of Cape Town (@CityofCT) June 10, 2021
CCT will move to Stage 3 loadshedding from 17h00 to 22h00, then revert to Stage 2 from 22h00 to 06h00.#CTInfo pic.twitter.com/EHEmYtOtlB
The City is able to generate additional capacity thanks to the help of the Steenbras pumped storage plant.
Previously the City explained how the additional capacity was generated, and said that it was all dependent on how much power the City can pump through the Steenbras hydro pump station to replenish power reserves overnight.
“At night if there is no load shedding, we typically pump to replenish power reserves to assist customers the next day. It’s a tough choice about when in the day we apply reserves (day or night) to limit the impact of load shedding on customers and livelihoods.
“It’s simply impossible to pump to replenish power reserves and to not load shed at the same time, which sometimes limits the contingency measures.”