Eskom warns of possible Stage 6 power cuts from 5pm.
Eskom chief executive Andre de Ruyter says the power utility could be forced to introduce stage 6 load shedding on Tuesday evening (28 June) due to a significant deterioration of its operations overnight.
In an emergency meeting on Tuesday morning, De Ryter said that 10 operating units had been lost overnight with total unplanned losses sitting at 14,204MW. This has been exacerbated by the ongoing wildcat strike which has led to associated losses of an additional 3,651MW due to coal and labour issues.
While Eskom is hopeful of bringing more units online by this evening, De Ruyter said that the risk of stage 6 power cuts is high. Stage 6 doubles the frequency of stage 3, which means outages will be scheduled over four-day periods for four hours at a time.
De Ruyter added that labour issues are ongoing at its power plants across the country, including a large number of employees who have been intimidated into staying at home, road blockages preventing the delivery of coal, as well as ongoing physical disruptions.
If the strike is resolved, the power utility still faces a significant backlog of maintenance, which means load shedding is likely to continue, he said.
