Eskom announced today that Stage 3 loadshedding will commence at 14:00 and remain in effect until Monday, 10 March 2025 at 05:00. This decision comes after the utility experienced a critical loss of 2700MW over the past 14 hours, severely straining the already constrained power system.
The power deficit includes the unexpected offline status of Koeberg Unit 2—recently returned to service on Wednesday—and two Kusile Units whose coal operations were adversely affected by local weather conditions. In addition, high levels of planned maintenance, aimed at winter preparation and regulatory compliance, have contributed to the reduced generation capacity.
With the current capacity constraints, Eskom has been forced to rely heavily on emergency reserves. As a result, efforts are now focused on replenishing these reserves during the weekend in preparation for the coming business week. The utility is deploying extra engineering resources to expedite repairs on offline units, with an anticipated restoration of 6200MW by Monday’s evening peak.
Eskom’s Summer Outlook, published on 26 August 2024, remains unchanged, reaffirming the company’s commitment to preventing a recurrence of the extensive loadshedding experienced in 2023. “We reiterate our commitment to ensuring that South Africa is in no way returning to the levels of loadshedding that we experienced in 2023. Two years into delivering the generation recovery plan, we are at a challenging time and the full force of our highly skilled engineering resources are deployed and focussed,” said Eskom’s Group Executive Generation, Bheki Nxumalo.
Nxumalo added, “We have had some delays in returning units that previously tripped back to the grid, as well as the return of three longer-term outage units, which will eventually bring an additional 2500MW to the grid over the coming weeks.”
Eskom Group Chief Executive, Dan Marokane, acknowledged the current setback, stating, “Loadshedding is a painful reminder of the past, and situations such as this drive our resolve to double down and stay the course to end loadshedding. We apologise to the nation for this temporary setback. Our intensive maintenance efforts have led to a 98% electricity availability compared to just 9.6% last year, which is a direct result of the deep maintenance we conducted in summer 2023/2024.”
Marokane further stressed that while baseload capacity remains constrained, the ongoing generation recovery plan is steadily addressing these challenges. “Achieving our goal of a stable energy availability factor of 65% to 70% will significantly reduce the risk of loadshedding,” he said.
Eskom will continue to monitor the situation closely and provide updates as needed.
