Eskom Group Chief Operating Officer, Jan Oberholzer said sporadic load shedding is likely to be implemented during summer months.
The dark lords at Megawatt Park gave an update on the current system challenges on Monday, this as the country currently battles another bout of load shedding to last at least until Friday.
Oberholzer said Eskom suffered a ‘disastrous’ week as 42 generating units tripped, which resulted in the current blackouts.
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He said there are likely to be power cuts during the summer months too.
“We are ramping up planned maintenance as we head into summer. We also find that our maintenance is not yet yielding required results. Units return to work, and then breakdown. This is due to lack of skills.”
Cyril Ramaphosa’s energy plan
Oberholzer said there have been a number of comments surrounding why Eskom is load shedding because President Cyril Ramaphosa’s plan on the energy crisis should have helped.
“This is going to take time to implement. For the next 12 months we may not see the benefits yet. Until then, we need to rely on coal fleet. It is a delicate situation and it is critical that capacity be added as soon as possible.”
The power utility cut South African’s lights last week, implementing stage 4 load shedding
This was reduced to stage 3 from 5am on Monday morning.
Stage 2 will be implemented from Tuesday until Friday.
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