ESKOM Says Load Shedding Not To Exceed Stage 6

Eskom, South Africa's struggling power supplier, assured the country that load shedding would not likely go beyond Stage 6.

Additionally, the utility stated that it anticipates an increase in capacity after the weekend.

"I can give the country the assurance that we're doing everything in our power to ensure that we do not end up in a situation where we go beyond that [Stage 6]. But, of course, the system has an inherent lack of reliability, and that gives us the need to plan for these unforeseen events," said Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter on Monday, as reported by EWN News.

Eskom anticipates record Stage 6 outages, which involve 10 hours a day without electricity, to last until late on Wednesday before they are lessened in intensity.

The power utility announced the commencement of Stage 6 following the failure of the generation units at the Arnot, Hendrina, Lethabo, Majuba, and Camden power stations. Consequently, it increased scheduled rolling blackouts to Stage 6 on Sunday, requiring up to 6,000 megawatts of capacity to be removed from the national grid.

According to De Ruyter, 3766 megawatts are unavailable due to planned maintenance.

He confirmed that units at Lethabo and Camden would be brought back into service by the end of the week and noted that this would alleviate current constraints and reduce risk.

"By Thursday, we will start phasing down the stages. We are able to utilize our open cycle gas turbines, and we are able to procure diesel with the backing of National Treasury," De Ruyter said, as reported by SA News.

As per the CEO, the utility is also dealing with long-term failures that have left at least 5000MW of generating capacity inaccessible, severely taxing the electricity system. He also stated that "the shortfall in generating capacity...is very critical" due to unforeseen events like those which occurred at Lethabo Power Station over the weekend, resulting in the loss of two producing units due to coal shortages and another unit due to a boiler tube leak.

The recent inclement weather also had an impact on production. Eskom also acknowledged that there have been more occurrences of fraud and corruption by its own personnel and contractors, particularly in Mpumalanga, in connection with the theft of coal and damage to infrastructure.

De Ruyter said Eskom sent letters to 15 contractors thus far that the utility suspects have infringed its policies concerning theft and corruption.