After a few blissful weeks without load shedding, South Africans will once again need to meal prep before the lights go out and dust off the candles.
The power utility recently announced that Stage 2 load shedding would once again be implemented due to a shortage of generation capacity. Stage 2 will take effect from 4pm to 12am and will continue until tomorrow, 04 August.
Eskom’s inability to provide sufficient power to the country has been widely criticised, with President Cyril Ramaphosa finally stepping in to handle the dire energy crisis with a 10-point plan.
However, the reason behind the latest bout of load shedding is a delay in returning a generation unit to service at Arnot, Koeberg and the Kusile power stations, as well as an unplanned outage of a generation unit each at Camden, Medupi and two units each at Grootvlei, Dendrina and Majuba power stations.
There is currently 2 931MW on planned maintenance and another 15 051MW of capacity available for breakdowns.
The power utility has further reminded the public that “load shedding is implemented only as a last resort to protect the national power grid.”
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