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Eskom announced that Stage 2 loadshedding would start at 6 am on Saturday and continue through to 11 pm.
The power utility said this would be repeated on Sunday as the system was severely constrained and it also needed to replenish the depleted emergency generation reserves for the coming week.
“As Eskom ramps up its planned maintenance during the lower demand summer period, as previously committed, it has had a large number of unforeseen breakdowns from the aging, unreliable plant over the past few days.”
Two generating units at the Kendal Power Station are offline in compliance with environmental legislation while four generation units at the Camden Power Station have been taken offline to conserve the integrity of the ash dam facility.
“We currently have 7 452MW on planned maintenance, while another 10 208MW of capacity is unavailable due to unplanned maintenance,” Eskom said.
It said their teams were working around the clock to return as many of these units to service as soon as possible.
“Eskom requests the people of South Africa to continue using electricity sparingly in order to help us limit the impact of loadshedding. We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience during this difficult period.”
