Cape Town – Power utility service Eskom has extended power cuts under Stage 6 until Tuesday at 5am, with the possibility of yet another possible extension.
Eskom made the announcement this morning when it was set to reduce the Stage 6 power cuts down to stage 5.
Meanwhile, while Eskom customers are set to remain on Stage 6 load shedding, the City of Cape Town has placed its customers under Stage 4 until 8pm this evening, thereafter they will move to Stage 5 until 10pm.
At the weekend, the City said that it was working tirelessly to build reserves to enable it to protect customers from two stages of Eskom’s load shedding over the week ahead, where possible.
City Mayco member for energy Beverley van Reenen said this was, however, subject to updates required as there were variables at play such as the Steenbras Dam levels necessary for the hydro pump action, and the general volatility of the Eskom situation.
“It is expected that Eskom’s Stage 6 could continue throughout the week but a worsening of load-shedding cannot be ruled out at this stage. The City’s ability to protect customers diminish to a large extent after Stage 6, although limited mitigation would be possible by garnering gas turbine capacity.”
Van Reenen said the City was urging its residential and commercial customers to work with it by curtailing the load and also flattening the evening peak usage.
“The City is also continuing to build on its programme of ending load-shedding over time by focusing on energy diversification to enhance the security of supply with the City’s own build projects, small-scale embedded generation programmes of buying excess power from qualifying customers, wheeling and independent power producer programmes.
“For now, we need an urgent national government intervention from President Cyril Ramaphosa to avert this fast-approaching disaster,” Van Reenen said.
Urgent load-shedding update - 18 September 2022
— City of Cape Town (@CityofCT) September 18, 2022
Eskom Stage 6 load-shedding confirmed until 05:00 on Tuesday, 20 September.
City customers
Stage 4: 05:00 - 20:00
Stage 5: 20:00 - 22:00
Updates to follow. #CTInfo pic.twitter.com/HgyNAuKgNj