Eskom seems to have implemented stage 8 load shedding without informing the South African public.
According to a tweet on Tuesday evening from Eskom spokesperson, Sikonathi Mantshantsha, Eskom’s peak feedback showed that it had implemented 7 045MW of load shedding.
This equates to stage 8 power cuts.
But Eskom has told South Africans that it is currently implementing stage 6 load shedding.
Stage 8 is the highest level of load-shedding the country has yet experienced.
Eskom said stage 6 load shedding would be in place until Wednesday after a generating unit at each of Arnot, Hendrina, and Majuba power stations went offline. There were also two units at Camden Power Station that suffered breakdowns.
Two generating units at the Lethabo power station were also shut down due to coal constraints.
ALSO READ: Stage 6 load shedding to continue until Wednesday evening, Eskom confirms
These additional breakdowns seem to have forced Eskom to implement the higher stages of load shedding.
Load shedding stages
Stage 7 load shedding allows for up to 7 000MW to be shed. The 7 045MW that were shed on Tuesday night meant the country was actually experiencing stage 8 power cuts.
It is not the first time Eskom has been accused of under-reporting the load shedding stages it has implemented. The power utility has previously been criticised by energy analysts such as Ted Blom and Christ Yelland for its tendency to shed more power than it reports.
De Ruyter hinted at possibility of stage 8
Meanwhile, outgoing Eskom chief executive officer (CEO) André de Ruyter, on Monday announced that stage 6 rolling blackouts were set to continue across South Africa until Wednesday evening.
“We will have load shedding stage 6 prevailing until Wednesday evening peak. And by Thursday, we will then be able to start phasing that down to load shedding stage 4 with load shedding stage 3 being reached by the weekend,” he said.
De Ruyter made the announcement on Monday afternoon during a virtual media briefing on the parastatal’s system challenges.
He did, however, mention that there was a possibility that the country could see stage 8 at the time, but said that it would not go beyond this.
ALSO READ: Expect stage 8 this winter: 59% of Eskom’s coal fleet is unavailable
Additional reporting Thapelo Lekabe.
