South Africa’s power utility, Eskom, has escalated load-shedding to level 5 citing faults at power generation plants.
In a statement seen by Pindula News, Eskom said load-shedding will be at level 5 until further notice. Reads the statement:
Due to unusually high demand and the breakdown of a generating unit each at Hendrina, Kendal and Kriel power stations, loadshedding has unfortunately been escalated to Stage 5 until further notice.
Koeberg Unit 1 has been taken offline this morning for planned refuelling and routine maintenance. Eskom will give a full update in due course.
South Africa’s energy grid experienced a notable collapse in generating capacity in mid-September 2022 that resulted in up to half of Eskom’s generating capacity being lost.
Resultantly, Eskom which produces about 95% of the country’s electricity, is implementing scheduled, rolling blackouts in an attempt to save electricity while struggling to keep its ageing and poorly maintained coal-fired power stations operational.
With South Africa’s economy already struggling to rebound from the COVID-19 pandemic, economists have given stark warnings on the effect of the blackouts.
It has been estimated that load shedding has led to the economy losing R500 billion (just over $28 billion) since 2018, working out to about R1 billion per stage, per day. The crisis has a trickle-down effect on Zimbabwe which imports electricity from South Africa.
Already, Eskom has indicated that it won’t supply Zimbabwe with more electricity than it is supplying. despite the neighbouring country is facing