Saturday, 23 October 2021: Eskom regrets to announce that due to a shortage of generation capacity, loadshedding will be implemented starting at 21:00 tonight until 05:00 on Monday.
This loadshedding has been caused by breakdowns, numerous trips at various power stations, as well as delays in returning units to service. This has required us to rely heavily on emergency generation reserves, which are now at very low levels.
To ensure adequate reserves for the week ahead, it is necessary to preserve the remaining emergency reserves and to replenish as much as possible before Monday.
Over the past week there have been multiple breakdowns and trips, including those at Tutuka, Kriel, Hendrina, Kusile, Arnot and Kendal power stations. While some of these units have already returned to service, this has required us to utilise extensive emergency generation reserves to supplement capacity during the week. These now need to be replenished in order to increase available capacity for the week ahead.
Total breakdowns currently amount to 15 627MW while planned maintenance is 4 954MW of capacity.
Eskom would like to apologise for the inconvenience caused by the implementation of loadshedding, and requests the public to reduce the usage of electricity in order to help us through the constraints.
Eskom will communicate promptly should there be any significant changes to the power system.
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