Eskom has officially announced the return of Stage 2 load-shedding
- South Africans seem to have run out of luck with the return of load-shedding on Wednesday
- Eskom has announced that the nation will be subjected to Stage 2 load-shedding on both Wednesday and Thursday evening
- This comes in a bid to recover emergency generation reserves according to the state-owned entity
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Eskom has issued a statement warning South Africans that load-shedding is back with a vengeance on Wednesday afternoon.
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The power utility explained that the outages will continue on Thursday evening, commenting on the situation that:
"Eskom would like to inform the public that Stage 2 load-shedding will be implemented between 22:00 and 05:00 tonight and on Thursday night. The load-shedding is necessary in order to recover and preserve the emergency generation reserves that have been utilised to support the system during the week following the earlier than planned shutdown of Koeberg Unit 1 and other units whose return to service has been delayed."
The utility further explained that a sizable chunk of its capacity is currently unavailable due to unplanned maintenance:
"We currently have 6 672MW on planned maintenance, while another 12 073MW of capacity is unavailable due to unplanned maintenance. Eskom teams are working around the clock to return as many of these units to service as soon as possible."
While the utility insists that every effort is being made to return the nation to full capacity, it encouraged citizens to use electricity sparingly:
"Eskom would like to urge the public to reduce electricity consumption in order to help us minimize load-shedding. The system remains vulnerable and unpredictable. Load-shedding is implemented as a last resort in order to protect the integrity of the system."
Eskom further detailed how planned maintenance would continue adding to the high likelihood of power outages for the time being:
"As previously communicated, Eskom continues to implement reliability maintenance during this period, and thus the system will continue to be constrained and the risk of load-shedding remains elevated. At the moment, the equivalent of two large power stations is out for planned maintenance, adding pressure to the system."
Earlier, Briefly.co.za reported that Eskom had announced that South Africans are free to have a lit New Year's Eve after it suspended load-shedding on Thursday.
The embattled power utility explained that the demand for power has dropped ahead of the nation's long weekend.
Nevertheless, Eskom had pleaded with consumers to use electricity sparingly due to limited supply.
The utility is now turning its focus on preparing the system for when South Africans return to work.
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Source: Briefly News
