DURBAN — Brace yourself, Eskom has warned that it might be forced to implement load shedding at short notice following the loss of four generating units since Thursday morning.
“A unit each at the Tutuka, Medupi and Majuba power stations tripped, while a unit at Lethabo has been taken offline to repair a boiler tube leak,” Eskom said.
It said although the system was currently performing relatively well, with no load shedding being implemented, a further loss of generation capacity would force Eskom to implement load shedding at short notice in order to protect the integrity of the system, particularly between 6pm and 9pm.
Eskom said breakdowns currently totalled 13 557 megawatts (MW), while planned maintenance was 4 074MW of capacity.
Eskom said technicians were working to return as many of these units as possible, starting tonight.
Eskom has not implemented load shedding since July 22 because of some improvement in the performance of its generation fleet.
Eskom urged the people of South Africa to reduce electricity usage in order to ease the pressure on the system.
Eskom would communicate promptly if there were any significant changes to the performance of the system.
IOL