Load shedding was suspended at 5am on Monday but South Africans will be hit by power outages again tonight and tomorrow (Tuesday) night to “replenish energy reserves for the following day”.
“Load shedding will be suspended at 5:00 on Monday as Eskom has made some progress in replenishing the emergency generation reserves.
“However, due to the loss of Koeberg Unit 1 yesterday (Sunday) morning, we anticipate the need to utilise emergency reserves extensively during the next few days to avoid loadshedding,” Eskom said yesterday (Sunday).
“In order to achieve this, Stage 2 loadshedding will be required during Monday and Tuesday nights in order to replenish the emergency reserves for the following day,” Eskom added.
According to the power utility, Koeberg Unit 1 tripped yesterday (Sunday) morning as a result of a fault on a feedwater pump, which is on the secondary plant.
The plant was shut down in accordance with standard plant operating procedures.
Eskom has assured that there are no nuclear safety concerns on the reactor side f the plant and it will be restarted once the feedwater pump fault has been resolved.
“The investigation into the feedwater pump fault is in progress,” Eskom said.
Eskom said that over the past 24 hours, Eskom teams have returned to service a unit each at Tukuta and Hendrina power stations, while two Kusile units have also returned to service.
However, the company has taken off a unit each at Hendrina and Kriel power stations, in addition to the Koeberg unit.
Total breakdowns currently amount to 15 813MW while planned maintenance is 4 967MW of capacity. | IOL