Minister of Electricity says load shedding cost SA economy R1 billion a day. Image: Twitter/@GovernmentZA
Minister of Electricity: ‘Kusile’s Unit 4 returns to service’
Unit 4 of Kusile Power Station has restarted, restoring 800 megawatts that were lost during the unit’s 20-day scheduled repair.
Minister of Electricity says load shedding cost SA economy R1 billion a day. Image: Twitter/@GovernmentZA
Unit 4 of Kusile Power Station has restarted, restoring 800 megawatts that were lost during the unit’s 20-day scheduled repair.
Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, Minister in the Presidency for Electricity, made this statement when addressing the media about the nation’s Energy Action Plan’s implementation.
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When did the unit return to service?
On Sunday morning, the unit was brought back online, adding 800 megawatts to the available capacity and taking 800 megawatts off of Eskom’s scheduled maintenance.
The Mpumalanga power plant’s units 1, 2, and 3 were shut down because a flue-gas desulphurization (FGD) system was harmed in October of the previous year. The units stacks were impacted by this. He stated that between October and the end of November 2023, these are anticipated to go online.
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We’ve been able to shed a month on the return of unit 3 and the expectation is that we should be able to return this unit by 14 October. The same is applicable for unit 1. We should be able to get it on 30 October, ” said Ramakgopa.
Regarding the advancement of unit 2, the Minister stated that the staff initially believed the unit would return on 24 December. This has been changed to 30 November 2023, though.
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The Minister emphasized that Kusile is crucial to solving the load-shedding problem because “we will need significantly more additional generating capacity to be able to address this.”
What stage are we going to be in this week?
There have been several stages of load shedding across the nation in recent weeks, including Stage 6.
ALSO READ: Eskom celebrates addition of Kusile Unit: Relief for strained grid
Stage 2 load shedding will take place from 4 pm on Sunday to 4 pm on Monday due to further increases in generation capacity, according to an update from Eskom on Sunday afternoon.
Then, from Monday at 4 pm to Tuesday at 5 am, there will be Stage 4 load shedding. Stage 2 load shedding will thereafter take place from 5 am to 4 pm.
It read, “This pattern will be repeated every day until further notice.”
