Blackouts hit parts of the Western Cape on Monday night as Eskom was unable to provide sufficient electricity to meet demand, the Cape Times reported.
Its website said on Tuesday the blackouts came after Koeberg’s Unit Two generator was shut down to be refueled and for standard safety upgrades.
Eskom began its load-shedding at 6pm when it found itself unable to provide an energy deficit of a possible 100 megawatts (MW).
”As we entered the peak period, we found the demand became greater then the supply and we needed to begin shedding,” Eskom regional spokesperson Trish da Silva said.
”We shed for just over 45 minutes to shed a burden of 63,6MW.”
Eskom spokesperson Fani Zulu said: ”The good news is that Unit One is operating at 99% output. The bad news is that we’ll be relying on Unit One until the end of July.”
”It’s going to be this kind of situation every weekday evening through July and as we get deeper into winter, we’ll have to look at shedding during the day,” said Leslie Rencontre, the city’s director of electricity services.
Although Monday night’s demand was greater than the supply, consumers responded before wholesale load-shedding began.
”We were on the brink of shedding within the metro, but the demand curtailed,” Rencontre said.
”We were over the targets, but luckily there was a drop-off in load before we needed to cut the city.”
Among the areas affected were Arabella, Betty’s Bay, Pringle Bay, Bot River, De Doorns, Klawer, Kleinmond, Rawsonville, Strandfontein, Vanrhynsdorp and Vredendal. – Sapa