The South African power utility Eskom has resumed load shedding due to the breakdowns of four power generating units at the Kriel power plant. Eskom had successfully returned into operation units at the Tutuka power plant, the Kendal power plant, Kusile, and Matimba, but this wasn't enough to avoid load shedding. There have also been delays of the return to service at Duvha and Tutuka which pushed the need for load shedding. According to the company, more than 2,000 MW of capacity have been lost to the power grid, prompting Eskom to implement a new round of rolling power blackouts (stage-2 load shedding).
According to the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, Eskom implemented 661 hours of outages in 2020 (1,383 GWh shed), with a first round of 10 days in July 2020, exceeding its 3-day target under its winter plan. Eskom expects load shedding to continue until September 2021, owing to a chronic lack of maintenance that has made its power generation fleet unreliable.
Interested in Power Plants?
Enerdata has developed a market research service to screen, monitor and analyse the development of power generation assets.
Power Plant Tracker offers an interactive database and a powerful search engine covering power plants worldwide – including both installed and planned capacities for renewables and fossil fuels.