Energy expert Ted Blom believes South Africans should brace for higher stages of load shedding.
“Stage 8 is very possible, given [the] Koeberg [situation] will lead to Stage 7 automatically, unless a miracle happens.
“There is no diesel cushion to break the free fall. Only God can save us,” he told IOL.
In an alert just before 11am yesterday, Eskom spokesperson Sikhonathi Mantshantsha said Stage 6 load shedding will be implemented until further notice.
“This is due to a high number of breakdowns since midnight, as well as the requirement to strictly preserve the remaining emergency generation reserves,” he said.
Less than six hours earlier, Eskom pushed load shedding to Stage 4 owing to further breakdowns and delayed returns of generating units to service.
City of Cape Town customers were placed one stage lower at Stage 5.
Meanwhile, Unit 1 of the Koeberg nuclear power station will be shut down for maintenance today.
Eskom said the refuelling and maintenance outage starting this week, as well as the long-term operation project of Unit 1 of the Koeberg station, together with the October chimney failure that has forced three generation units offline at the Kusile power station, will further reduce available generation capacity and significantly increase the occurrence of load shedding over the next six to 12 months.
Stats SA reported that 2022 saw the quality and standard of living of most households decrease, with households dealing with price hikes that did not match salary increases, higher interest rates, continuous load shedding, increasing crime and bleak employment prospects.
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