SA faces more power outages

This comes after Eskom declared a system emergency on 18 June, saying the national power grid was under severe pressure and that the constrained conditions were expected to continue on 19 June.

According to the power giant, the power system was expected to be tight tonight over the evening peak (5pm – 9pm), especially between 5:30pm and 6:30pm due to higher demand during the colder weather conditions.

According to the utility’s bi-weekly system status bulletin, the peak demand forecast for 19 June was 33 252 megawatts.

“Although Eskom has adequate generating capacity to meet the demand during the day, the challenge is over the short sharp evening peak – particularly between 5:30pm and 6:30pm – when electricity demand increase up to 36 000 megawatts,” the utility said in a statement.

The power utility said if the electricity demand did not decrease dramatically, it would enforce emergency protocols and rolling reductions.

Eskom enforced load shedding three times this winter despite the utility’s earlier claims that it would be able to keep the country’s lights on.

Several suburbs around the country were hit by planned outages on Wednesday and Thursday last week as well as on the evening of 17 June, where outages lasted until 7pm that evening.

Eskom customers could access the utility’s load shedding schedules at https://loadshedding.eskom.co.za or contact its customer call centre 086 003 7566.

Municipal customers were advised to contact their respective municipalities for information.