Rustenburg - Load shedding will continue at Stage 4 until Saturday morning, but will drop to Stage 3 for the rest of the weekend.
This as Eskom announced that diesel deliveries had started at PetroSA’s facility in Mossel Bay, after a vessel carrying the diesel berthed on Thursday morning.
On Wednesday, Eskom said a vessel that was supposed to offload diesel at Mossel Bay but could not berth due to rough seas.
"Transferring the fuel to the Gourikwa and Akerlig open-cycle gas turbine stations will take place throughout the weekend to replenish by Monday.
“Eskom will also use the weekend to replenish the dam levels at the pumped-storage schemes, which have been utilised extensively to complement generation capacity," Eskom said.
It was expected that the first unit of the Camden power station would return to service during the weekend, with the remaining returning over the following 10 days.
"This requires the implementation of stage-4 load shedding to be maintained until 5am on Saturday.
"Load shedding will then be reduced to stage 3 until 5am on Monday. Eskom will publish a further update on Sunday afternoon, or as soon as there are any significant changes," Eskom said.
"In addition to all the eight Camden power station units that were taken off-line due to demineralised water contamination last night as a result of the incorrect valve being opened, a generating unit at Kriel power station was also taken off-line for repairs.
"We currently have 5 206MW on planned maintenance, while another 15 862MW of capacity is unavailable due to breakdowns."
Eskom apologised for the continued and unfortunate load shedding, which is implemented only as a last resort in view of the shortage of generation capacity and the need to attend to breakdowns.
IOL