Eskom announces stage 3 load-shedding

Eskom will implement stage 3 load-shedding from 17:00 on Friday, 31 January 2025.

The rotational power cuts will last throughout the weekend to allow Eskom to refill its emergency generation reserves for next week.

During a press briefing on Friday afternoon, electricity and energy minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa said the Eskom’s leadership was exceptionally disappointed that it had to take the step after 10 months without load-shedding.

Ramokgopa explained that a “perfect” storm of multiple unplanned breakdowns and continued necessary planned maintenance had resulted in the power utility depleting its emergency generation reserves in the past week.

Eskom suffered six unit outages at two of its best-performing coal-fired power stations — Lethabo and Mathimba.

In addition, the power utility had experienced delays in bringing units out of service back online.

The minister also said Eskom had stuck to its intensified planned maintenance schedule to increase overall fleet reliability, again emphasising its strategy of “short-term pain for long-term gain.”

“We are not going to compromise on planned maintenance,” the minister said.

He emphasised that the trendlines in unplanned breakdowns and the energy availability factor were still showing an overall improvement in the utility’s generation performance.

Eskom CEO Dan Marokane said that the power utility had to implement load-shedding to refill water levels at the utility’s pumped storage schemes and diesel reserves for its open-cycle gas turbines over the weekend.

The power utility’s generation head Bheki Nxumalo explained that the most common problem was boiler tube leaks, a recurring issue with Eskom’s ageing coal station fleet.

Nxumalo said five of the six units that broke down were still offline by Friday afternoon. Some of these are planned to return to the service over the weekend.