South Africa’s state-owned electricity provider will reduce supply by 6,000 megawatts until further notice after a generation unit at one of its newest coal-fired power stations broke down.
(Bloomberg) — South Africa’s state-owned electricity provider will reduce supply by 6,000 megawatts until further notice after a generation unit at one of its newest coal-fired power stations broke down.
The move to continuously implement so-called stage 6 loadshedding, which means as much as 12 hours of blackouts a day, was announced by Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd. late Wednesday evening and followed the breakdown of a unit at the Medupi Power Station. It is one of two giant coal-fired plants that have been under construction for more than a decade. The total cost of the two sites have ballooned to more than 460 billion rand ($25 billion) from and original estimate of 163 million rand.
Eskom announced Wednesday afternoon it will ramp up outages to stage 6 loadshedding for the first time since February in the afternoons and evenings, but had planned to reduce cuts to 5,000 megawatts during the day.
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Restoring Power Pylons in Capital May Take Five Days (April 12, 8 a.m.)
It may take as long as five days to repair and install new power pylons that supply parts of South Africa’s capital, Beeld reported, citing Eskom’s acting spokeswoman, Daphne Mokwena.
Seven high-tension electricity towers in the northeast of Tshwane municipality, which includes the capital, Pretoria, collapsed at the weekend, cutting power supplies to the area. That included Silverton, where Ford Motor Co. has a 720-vehicle-a-day assembly plant. The factory has already lost a full day of production, Fin24 reported, citing Neale Hill, president of Ford Africa.
Theft and vandalism often hamper power supply in South Africa as criminals target electricity infrastructure.
Above-Inflation Demands for Wage Hikes (April 11, 9:59 a.m.)
The Solidarity labor union is demanding inflation-beating pay increases for its members who work at Eskom.
Solidarity wants a raise of the average inflation rate plus 3 percentage points for all workers, it said in an emailed copy of demands seen by Bloomberg. The union’s mandate is to negotiate a multi-year agreement. Average consumer-price growth in South Africa was 6.9% last year.
Eskom agreed to a 7% wage increase for workers last year after illegal protests, in which roads to power plants were blocked, cars were set on fire and gasoline bombs were thrown at company managers’ homes.
–With assistance from Simbarashe Gumbo.
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