Hey Eskom, is julle ligte nog af?
EISH: Eskom predicts various stages of outages. Picture: Armand Hough. African News Agency (ANA)
Eskom is now just playing with our feelings.
Just a day after the power utility announced that South Africa would be permanently placed on Stage 2 and Stage 3 load shedding in order for it to implement its recovery plan, Eskom yesterday said it will be switching between stages 3 and 4 of load shedding until further notice.
“Evening load shedding will be maintained at Stage 4 from 4pm to 5am, while Stage 3 load shedding will be implemented daily from 5am to 4pm until further notice,” Eskom spokesperson Sikonathi Mantshantsha said.
It comes after two generating units at the Tutuka power station had to be taken offline for repairs.
On Sunday, Eskom said resolving the problems affecting performance of the generation coal fleet will take longer than South Africa wants or needs.
It said the country would be experiencing permanent load shedding for at least the next two years.
Meanwhile, outgoing Eskom boss André de Ruyter said Eskom would smaak the City of Cape Town’s plans to go off-grid as it will “save us a lot of money”.
The City’s bid to fill the gaps left by Eskom’s load shedding include the building of its first grid-connected solar plant in Atlantis.
Construction on the 7MW project is expected to begin this year, and the development is expected to come into operation by next year. The plant would supply 14.7 GWh of clean power annually for two decades.
The City also wants businesses and residents to sell power back to the municipality and roll out incentives for voluntary energy savings under a new ‘power heroes programme’.
“If a city like Cape Town goes off the Eskom grid, it will enable us to reduce our consumption of diesel which, by the way, we don’t cover in full in our tariff,” De Ruyter said.