In a media briefing on Wednesday morning, Eskom’s chief operating officer Jan Oberholzer said it was ’critically important’ to balance emergency resources to avoid a worse situation.
ESKOM has found itself in a serious predicament as it aims to balance its limited resources, including a shortage of diesel, while South Africans face Stage 4 load shedding.
The power utility said that should it run out of diesel and water, the country can reach up to Stage 6 of load shedding.
The power utility announced its implementation of Stage 4 load shedding shortly after 7am on Wednesday.
“It is with a great deal of disappointment that Eskom has to inform the public that further failures overnight of generation units has necessitated the implementation of Stage 4 load shedding starting at 9am this morning,” it said.
In a media briefing on Wednesday morning, Eskom’s chief operating officer Jan Oberholzer said it was “critically important” to balance emergency resources to avoid a worse situation.
He said to avoid reaching Stage 6 load shedding and responsibly use the limited resources, Eskom decided to implement Stage 4 load shedding on Wednesday morning.
The power utility said overnight, a unit each at the Kendal, Duvha, Camden and Kusile power stations tripped.
“This being the fourth day of extremely high diesel usage, the emergency reserves are being depleted faster than can be replenished.
“Stage 4 load shedding will therefore give us the space required to replenish the emergency reserves and continue to manage the system safely,” the power utility said earlier.
At about 3.30am on Wednesday, Eskom opened its cycle gas turbines to support the system.
Open cycle gas turbines cost R700,000 per unit per hour to run and uses 14 litres of diesel a second, Oberholzer said.
He said they expect to return seven generating units by this weekend.
Giving a description of the units that are currently operating, Oberholzer said that three were running at a very high risk, 10 at a medium risk and three at a low risk.
“While we have significant challenges with the units being down, we are also running units with risk,” he said.
“We have 80 units that need maintenance. It’s like a car, you have to do maintenance again after a while,” he added.
Eskom’s head of generation, Phillip Dukashe, said that they were also investigating every trip at the units.
“Over the last three days, we are seeing much more than we expected and it is worrying. We do investigate every trip and make sure we have a reason behind every trip,” Dukashe said.
He added that he was hoping a unit at Camden, Kusile and Medupi will be restored by the end of Wednesday.
– Political Bureau
