{"id":222590,"date":"2022-04-21T13:04:51","date_gmt":"2022-04-21T11:04:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/eskom-cautiously-optimistic-about-lifting-load-shedding-on-friday-evening\/"},"modified":"2022-04-21T13:04:51","modified_gmt":"2022-04-21T11:04:51","slug":"eskom-cautiously-optimistic-about-lifting-load-shedding-on-friday-evening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/eskom-cautiously-optimistic-about-lifting-load-shedding-on-friday-evening\/","title":{"rendered":"Eskom “cautiously optimistic” about lifting load shedding on Friday evening"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Eskom says after making some ground in recovering generation capacity; it may lift all stages of load shedding on Friday evening.<\/p>\n

The power utility has been battling generation unit failures throughout the past week, which have tipped the country into the more stringent stage four load shedding – dropping down to stage three on Wednesday evening.<\/p>\n

Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter said the power utility is recovering some of the lost capacity back into the system.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were sitting way in excess of 16 000MW of unplanned losses earlier in the week, so the system is recovering. We are seeing some big units coming back as planned. Demand for this evening\u2019s peak is 30 011MW and our available capacity is 28 022MW.  [This] therefore explains why we have to maintain load shedding stage three until after evening peak tonight.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe intend to drop [load shedding] to stage two and then by after evening peak on Friday, we will be hopefully in a position to lift load shedding in its entirety, depending how the system performs. We will continue to return units to service over the next two days so that we will be in a position \u2013 if all goes well, given the risks \u2013 that we can then lift load shedding by the weekend,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The generation units that the power utility has been able to reconnect to the system are Arnot power station unit two and six, Kendal power station unit three, Matimba power station unit five and Majuba power station unit three.<\/p>\n

De Ruyter said reserve generation capacity at the power utility\u2019s open cycle gas turbines is also recovering sufficiently.<\/p>\n

Despite progress in the recovery of generation units, De Ruyter reported that there were other unplanned breakdowns and an enforced outage from Mozambique\u2019s Cahora Bassa Hydroelectric power station, which feeds into Eskom.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did lose Grootvlei [power station unit] two\u2026 due to a boiler tube leak. There is a loss of 270MW due to maintenance done on the line from Cahora Bassa. This maintenance is being conducted in Mozambique by our partners on that line, so we are doing everything we can to assist them in order to complete that maintenance.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe unfortunately did lose Tutuka six this morning\u2026 due to a submerged scraper chain that got stuck. This chain clears the ash at the bottom of the boiler and when we cannot clear the ash, we have challenges running the boiler. That leads to a loss of about 365MW,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The week ahead <\/strong><\/p>\n

De Ruyter was cautiously optimistic about a low forecast for load shedding next week.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the moment\u2026 we don\u2019t anticipate load shedding for next week. However, that is dependent on the stability of our generating units. We are all aware that there are risks in the system that are difficult to forecast and predict.<\/p>\n

\u201cDepending on how we perform over the weekend and depending on rain that is forecast for the Mpumalanga area\u2026 where the majority of our coal plants are located, we may potentially see further impacts and that may have an impact on availability of generating capacity particularly for Monday next week.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut after that, if we can bring those units back that are currently planned to return to service and if we can get additional reduction in partial load losses, we should be okay. So we don\u2019t plan for load shedding next week but we must emphasise that there is always a residual risk,\u201d he said. \u2013 SAnews.gov.za<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eskom says after making some ground in recovering generation capacity; it may lift all stages of load shedding on Friday evening. The power utility has been battling generation unit failures throughout the past week, which have tipped the country into the more stringent stage four load shedding – dropping down to stage three on Wednesday […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":222591,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[38678],"class_list":{"0":"post-222590","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-south-africa","8":"tag-sanews","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/eskom-cautiously-optimistic-about-lifting-load-shedding-on-friday-evening.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222590\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}