South Africa’s power utility, Eskom, has restored eight units at power plants after implementing its highest stage of controlled power cuts early Sunday due to multiple failures at Majuba and Camden power stations over the weekend.
On Saturday, Eskom applied Stage 3 power cuts, locally known as load-shedding, reducing 3,000 megawatts from the national grid.
“Of the 10 units that we lost overnight, we have essentially returned six units,” Eskom group CEO Dan Marokane told reporters on Sunday.
He added that five to six more units were expected to become operational during the day, boosting the 3,200 MW of capacity recovered overnight.
“We anticipate getting out of this stage by the end of the week,” he said, noting that, given the pace of recovery, Eskom would consider reducing power cuts by Monday.
Early Monday morning, Eskom announced that outages would be scaled down to Stage 4 until further notice.
Regular breakdowns at Eskom’s fleet of ageing coal-fired plants, which provide the bulk of electricity in Africa’s most industrialized economy, often cause load-shedding. The system follows an incremental approach, with Stage 1 cutting 1,000 MW and Stage 6 being the highest implemented to date.
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