Eskom has reduced load shedding to Stage 2 during the afternoon with Stage 3 to follow during the evening.

This after the power utility implemented Stage 4 load shedding last Thursday following challenges at power stations.

‘Load shedding will be reduced to Stage 2 from 5am on Sunday until 4pm. Thereafter, Stage 3 load shedding will be implemented from 4pm until 5am on Monday. This is as a result of the anticipated recovery of emergency reserves overnight and the two generating units expected to return to service by Sunday.

‘Eskom will provide an update of the outlook for the week ahead on Sunday, or as soon as any significant changes occur,’ the power utility said on social media platform, X.

Eskom explained why it had to implement Stage 4 load shedding last week.

‘Last Thursday, generation capacity was lost from five generating units at Kendal and a unit at Duvha power stations. This resulted in the need to ramp up load shedding to Stage 4 from 4am until further notice.

‘The events that led to the los
s of generating capacity at Kendal Power Station units are as follows: Kendal Unit 1 was taken offline on Wednesday at 8pm due to leaking safety valves, which caused the capacity of the demineralised water storage tanks to run low. While recovering the storage water tanks, a contamination incident occurred in the water treatment plant, necessitating the isolation of the plant to investigate the root cause.

‘During this period of investigation, the level of auxiliary cooling water, which also uses demineralised water, ran low. This led to capacity loss from four generating units at 2am in the morning,’ the power utility said.

Source: South African Government News Agency