South Africans Worried About More Loadshedding Following Explosion at Camden Power Station

• An explosion at one of Eskom's stations in the Mpumalanga province on Wednesday morning had South Africans concerned that loadshedding could be coming soon
• Eskom did not immediately issue a statement about the explosion but the power utility eventually stated that rolling blackouts are currently not on the cards
• Social media users have criticised the state-owned power utility for never running smoothly and always having something go wrong

ERMELO - South Africans on social media have shown great concerns that an explosion on Wednesday morning, 29 December at the Camden Power Station just outside Ermelo in the Mpumalanga could lead to rolling blackouts.

The news about the explosion was broken by Chris Yelland, an energy analyst, on his Twitter page well before Eskom made the official announcement.

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Yelland stated that an inside source revealed that at around 11am, the explosion was caused by a faulty transformer. An hour later, he confirmed that the explosion led to a fire breaking out, however, it was contained.

"There was a fault on Camden Unit 8 generator transformer. The fire has been contained. A specialist will assess the damage & cause. Units 7 & 8 are shut down. Unit 7 is shut down to protect its transformer from flashover due to water sprayed on the Unit 8 transformer," wrote Yelland.

Eskom issued a statement much later confirming that a transformer did indeed explode. The power utility further stated that the impact of the explosion resulted in a loss of 190MW and as result, it does not seem likely it will affect the supply on the power grid.

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South Africans are not convinced loadshedding will not be implemented

Heading online, South Africans cannot take Eskom's word that the likelihood of rolling blackouts is quite low. Others shared tweets of distress that Eskom might even implement Stage 8 loadshedding.

Here's what they had to say:

@terrencemgxamza said:

"That's what you say now... are you really sure!?"

@anne_hyam said:

"There's ALWAYS SOMETHING... nothing ever runs smoothly at Eksom!"

@TTOfficialSA said:

"Fire everywhere hey... De Ruyter must just go."

Eskom faces R300bn pollution bill, consumers face continuous stage 8 load shedding

Briefly News previously reported that electricity prices are predicted to rise after Eskom faces a whopping R300 billion pollution bill.

The power utility has successfully managed to appeal against the department of forestry, fisheries and the environment's opposition to Eskom's application to postpone air quality compliance timelines.

If the air quality measures come into place, Eskom would be forced to shut down Matimba and Medupi power stations which are running above legal limits.

Source: Briefly News