Eskom enters 23rd successive outage-free day

A day after Jacob Zuma opened South Africa's first new power plant in 20 years‚ Eskom entered what looked likely to be its 23rd successive outage-free day.

The ulitity’s website said on Monday: “Eskom does not anticipate that there will be a need to load shed today as the power system is currently stable.

“However‚ the system remains vulnerable‚ meaning that any extra load or faults in the system may necessitate the need to implement load shedding.”

“Eskom has met the country’s electricity demand while operating its generation fleet in a sustainable manner for over three weeks‚ resulting in no load shedding for 22 consecutive days.”

Zuma on Sunday officially opened Medupi Unit 6 in Lephalale‚ Limpopo Province.

The Medupi Power Station Unit 6 project is a green-fields coal-fired power plant comprising six units rated in total at 4800 MW installed capacity‚ Presidency spokesman‚ Bongani Majola said.

“It was first synchronised to the national grid on 2 March 2015‚ and has been able to alleviate pressure on the national electricity system‚ helping to either avoid load-shedding altogether or minimise its severity.

“The commercial operation of Unit 6 is also a critical milestone in efforts to build new generating capacity in the country‚” Majola added.

Construction on the six-unit‚ 4764MW plant about 350km north of Johannesburg was started in 2007 but the first 794MW only came online this week after delays due to strikes‚ technical issues and cost overruns.

The state-owned power utility Eskom meanwhile is facing its worst crisis as it struggles to stem power shortages.

"Shortage of energy does not only cause enormous inconvenience‚ it is a serious impediment to economic growth. Today‚ I am here to say‚ there is light‚" Zuma said on Sunday.

Medupi's Unit 6 brings Eskom's installed capacity to 45000 MW‚ said Brian Molefe‚ Eskom acting chief executive of the utility. -RDM News Wire