Eskom will resume rationing electricity on Tuesday after a brief reprieve over the festive holidays.
Stage 2 load shedding will be implemented between 5 am and 4pm on Tuesday, followed by Stage 3 until 5am on Wednesday.
“This pattern of Stage 2 load shedding in the morning and Stage 3 load shedding in the evening will be repeated daily until further notice,’’ the utility said in a statement on Monday.
Eskom has been battling to meet electricity demand due to breakdowns at its plants, leading to the implementation of load shedding to prevent a complete blackout.
Meanwhile, Eskom said it was making headway in keeping the lights on in the country as it announced that Kusile Unit 5 was synchronised to the grid for the first time.
Eskom “is delighted to announce that Unit 5 of the Kusile Power Station Project was synchronised to the national grid for the first time on December 31, 2023, at 17:22,” it said in a statement on Sunday.
The unit will contribute an additional 800 MW to the country’s power system, which was never part of Eskom's grid capacity. It will supply electricity intermittently during the testing and optimisation phase over the next six months before being transferred into commercial operation and the capacity officially added to the current Eskom fleet.
Kusile Units 1, 2, and 3 were offline for nearly a year after a flue-gas duct collapsed in October 2022. Their absence from Eskom's grid played a major role in increasing levels of load shedding in South Africa.
Earlier this month, the struggling power utility reported that for the six-month period ended September 30, plant availability continued to deteriorate, with the energy availability factor (EAF) declining to 55.3% and resulting in more frequent load shedding at higher stages on average than in the previous year.
In total, load shedding was implemented on 183 days for 3,578 hours during the period, which equates to 149.1 days.
#POWERALERT1
— Eskom Hld SOC Ltd (@Eskom_SA) January 1, 2024
Stage 2 loadshedding will be implemented from 05:00 until 16:00 on Tuesday. Thereafter, Stage 3 loadshedding will be implemented until 05:00 on Wednesday pic.twitter.com/68n38N2Feo
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