Pravin Gordhan urges Eskom to ‘urgently’ ease Stage 6 of load shedding

While South Africans are waiting to see changes as far as the load-shedding schedule implemented by Eskom is concerned, Minister of Public Enterprises Pravin Gordhan wants urgency.

Gordhan has sent a strong message to the Eskom board to act with urgency in solving the issues regarding Stage 6 of load shedding.

On Thursday, Gordhan said the power utility’s management must get the country out of Stage 6 load shedding with immediate effect.

It is reported that the minister made the call in a media statement released by the department just after the embattled power generator ramped up its load-shedding schedule on Wednesday.

Eskom says while it currently has 4 984MW out on planned maintenance, another 19 052MW of capacity remains unavailable due to breakdowns at its power stations.

“I have directed them to meet and act with a great sense of urgency in order to ensure that the management of Eskom gets the country out of level 6 load shedding with immediate effect,” said the minister.

“Power cuts are having a devastating effect on households and livelihoods, investment, and economic climate. This is totally unacceptable. The frequency of breakdowns is certainly attributable to some element of malfunction within the Eskom systems and possibly sabotage as well.

“We have had to call on law enforcement agencies to show a stronger presence at all Eskom power stations. Those who are involved in nefarious activities, beware. We will not tolerate any activities whose purposes are not in the national interest.

“We apologise to the country about the impact and disruptions caused by load shedding and will keep the nation informed about the status of electricity.”

In the meantime, Eskom dispatched an announcement on Thursday that it will not rush to start with the scheduled refuelling and maintenance outage of Unit 1 of the Koeberg Nuclear Power Station to allow the system to stabilise and recover some generation capacity.

The state-owned utility announced that the maintenance was set to begin on Wednesday (December 7) evening but said it will now start on Saturday, should the grid recover.

“While Eskom is ready to commence with the outage, with the contractors and all the requisite resources on standby, grid stability is an important consideration prior to shutting down the Unit 1 reactor to commence the maintenance and refuelling outage,” says Sadika Touffie, acting chief nuclear officer.

“This is going to be a long but necessary outage – the first of its kind for Koeberg. Eskom has taken care to ensure no undue delays are experienced once the project gets underway.”