Power cuts return to South Africa after 10 months

During a media briefing Friday afternoon, Ramokgopa explained that several factors, including a number of unit failures at state power utility Eskom's power stations, led to a "perfect storm," triggering the necessity of initiating load-shedding.

Johannesburg: South Africa will experience load-shedding, or rolling blackouts, over the weekend after more than 10 months of uninterrupted electricity supply, Minister of Electricity and Energy Kgosientsho Ramokgopa said.

During a media briefing Friday afternoon, Ramokgopa explained that several factors, including a number of unit failures at state power utility Eskom’s power stations, led to a “perfect storm,” triggering the necessity of initiating load-shedding.

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“We had units out for planned maintenance, and then there were unit failures at Matimba and Lethabo power stations. For most of the week, we had to rely on the open-cycle gas turbines. We had to rely on diesel. We exhausted our reserves,” he said.

This came after Eskom announced that stage 3 load-shedding would be implemented Friday and run for the weekend, Xinhua news agency reported.

“This is a potentially temporary setback. Load-shedding is largely behind us due to the structural improvements in our generation fleet,” said Eskom Group Chief Executive (CEO) Dan Marokane in a statement. “However, over the past seven days, we have experienced several breakdowns that require extended repair times. This has necessitated the use of all our emergency reserves, which now need to be replenished over the weekend.”

As the country prepared for a resumption of load-shedding later Friday, Rethabile Melamu, CEO of the South African Photovoltaic Industry Association, said it is important not to lose focus and not to lose hope, urging all stakeholders to work with the government to address the power cuts.

“This is indeed a sad setback, but our work needs to continue. We are within touching distance of the finish line. I call on all stakeholders and role-players to remain committed to finally ending load-shedding permanently,” she said.

Scheduled power cuts, commonly referred to as load-shedding in South Africa, have hindered the country’s economic growth for over a decade. Since March last year, however, there have been no power cuts due to a significant improvement in Eskom’s electricity supply, resulting in more than 300 consecutive days without outages.