Cape Town – The City of Cape Town said that its customers would be on Stage 3 load shedding today after power utility Eskom announced it would be implementing Stage 4 load shedding on Tuesday morning.
Eskom Group Chief Executive André de Ruyter will hold a Virtual Media Briefing this morning, where Eskom’s management team will provide an update on the current system challenges.
This comes after an alert from the power supplier this morning stating that after the tripping of its generation units at Majuba Unit 5 and Tutuka Unit 4, it had escalated load shedding stage.
At the time, Eskom said Stage 2 load shedding was implemented due to additional generation unit losses and the delayed return to service of generators.
“The loss of four additional generation units at Matla, Tutuka, Duvha, and Arnot power stations, over the past 24 hours exacerbated by the delay in units returning to service at Camden, Matla, Grootvlei, and Tutuka power stations has, unfortunately, necessitated the implementation of load shedding,” the power utility said.
Media briefing: Eskom update on the current system challenges https://t.co/fnPePN95pq
— Eskom Hld SOC Ltd (@Eskom_SA) April 19, 2022
The City of Cape Town, meanwhile, said that its customers would go to Stage 3 from 8am, and there would be updates to come.
Load-shedding update: 19 April
— City of Cape Town (@CityofCT) April 19, 2022
Eskom has just declared Stage 4 load-shedding.
City customers will go to Stage 3 from 08:00.
Updates to follow.#CTInfo pic.twitter.com/lyJzOe97Th
The City of Cape Town’s spare generation capacity depends on how much power the City can pump through its 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 load shed at the same time, which sometimes limits the contingency measures,” the City previously explained.