As South Africans face rolling Stage 6 power cuts for the next few days at least, electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa has said that ‘there will be no shortcut to the ending of load shedding’, according to Daily Maverick.
Ramokgopa is quoted as saying (in reference to the risk of an ‘intensification’ of load-shedding): ‘‘I’m saying possibility [of intensified load shedding] because, if that ramped-up planned maintenance… is accompanied by unplanned capacity loss factor – that is the other units that are tripping – then it means there will be an intensification of load shedding. Which is essentially the situation that we find ourselves in.’
Stage 6 blackouts began on Monday, after an increase in planned maintenance as well as the breakdown of generating units led to generation capacity constraints.
Ramokgopa said Eskom had begun to ramp up planned maintenance ‘to build a degree of resilience in the system’. Maintenance was lowered during winter due to increased demand for electricity.
Part of the reason Eskom had seen a deterioration in generating capacity, he said, was that it had not been performing planned maintenance over the years.
An injection of funding from National Treasury meant Eskom could direct significant resources towards maintenance.
Eskom’s head of generation, Bheki Nxumalo, said Stage 6 load-shedding was likely to continue for the rest of the week, and be eased off towards the weekend as some units began to return to service.