Wednesday, 06 January 2021: Eskom would like to inform the public that Stage 2 loadshedding will be implemented between 22:00 and 05:00 tonight and on Thursday night. The loadshedding is necessary in order to recover and preserve the emergency generation reserves that have been utilised to support the system during the week following the earlier than planned shutdown of Koeberg Unit 1 and other units whose return to service has been delayed.
We currently have 6 672MW on planned maintenance, while another 12 073MW of capacity is unavailable due to unplanned maintenance. Eskom teams are working around the clock to return as many of these units to service as soon as possible.
Eskom would like to urge the public to reduce electricity consumption in order to help us minimize loadshedding. The system remains vulnerable and unpredictable. Loadshedding is implemented as a last resort in order to protect the integrity of the system.
As previously communicated, Eskom continues to implement reliability maintenance during this period, and thus the system will continue to be constrained and the risk of loadshedding remains elevated. At the moment the equivalent of two large power stations is out for planned maintenance, adding pressure to the system.
Eskom will communicate timeously should there be any significant changes to the power system.
ENDS
