While Eskom warned that it’s blackout anniversary afterparty will continue with more “high level” loadshedding for the week ahead being a bright possibility, The City of Cape Town says it is working towards generating enough capacity to mitigate some of the current loadshedding crisis.
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A week of breakdowns upon breakdowns of Eskom’s generation units led to escalated the country into Stage 6 loadshedding on Sunday morning for the second time this year. According to EWN, the power utility admitted to suffering a jaw-dropping 45 breakdowns in just one week – including the problem at Koeberg.
Through the Steenbras Hydro Pumped Storage Scheme in conjunction with possible gas turbine capacity, the City of Cape Town aims to protect its customers from two stages of Eskom’s loadshedding over the week ahead.
This, however, is subject to changes in Steenbras dam levels and the general volatility of the Eskom situation says the City. While limited mitigation would be possible through garnering gas turbine capacity, its capability to mitigate loadshedding stages diminish to a large extent after Stage 6.
It is expected that Stage 6 loadshedding could continue throughout the week but a worsening of loadshedding cannot be ruled out at this stage. Eskom announced it’s all hands on deck as it hopes to acquire 1000 MW from companies with excess generation capacity to add to the grid.
“But for now, we need an urgent national government intervention from President Cyril Ramaphosa to avert this fast-approaching disaster,” says Councillor Beverley van Reenen, the city’s mayoral committee member for energy.
President Cyril Ramaphosa is expected to make a U-turn back to Cape Town after Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral to attend to the countrywide Eskom crisis.
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