Expert warns of more intense load shedding

Eskom implemented stage 6 load shedding on Wednesday until Friday, with stage 5 kicking in on Saturday.

The total outages amount to nearly 24 000MW, which is 47% of the system being down, while unplanned outages accounted for 19 000MW, which is 35% of unavailable capacity.

Eskom also took Unit 1 of Koeberg offline from midnight for maintenance that will last about six months.

Blom says Eskom has not been transparent on the reasons for the breakdowns.

"Koeberg going offline means a loss of 1000MW I would be surprised if we are not on load shedding stage 7 this week. It seems Eskom is struggling to get quality coal into the plants, and this has been a problem for a long time.

READ: No load shedding reprieve anytime soon, warns Eskom

"The closer we get to higher levels of breakdowns, its compounds get worse, with only 20GW available to the economy, we are heading very close to grid knockdown."

Blom says the situation at Eskom has been brewing for years.

"This disaster has been building up for years and I have tabled a proposal previously in 2019 and they told me to watch the space and I am still waiting for a reply, Eskom has not taken any emergency steps to try and solve the problem. 

"Eskom management team is not competent to manage emergencies. At this point only God can save us."