By Liesl Frankson

Households around the country were left in the dark on Sunday when Eskom implemented load shedding to protect South Africa’s power grid from a complete blackout.

This followed the collapse of Silo 20 at the Majuba Powers Station in Mpumalanga on Saturday afternoon.  Eskom Chief Executive, Tshediso Matona, said the company’s first priority was to protect the power grid and look at the impact of the power supply on the country.

Following the collapse Eskom triggered its emergency command centre and arrangements were made for permits to transport mobile coal feeders to the site, to enable a manual feed of coal to five of the six units at the power station.

“This is to ensure that the power station is able to operate at a minimum of half-load,” Matona explained. Once the silo collapsed the station output was drastically reduced from 3 600 MW to 1 800 MW and is currently running at 600 MW.

“Eskom will not compromise its capacity and will load shed if necessary to protect the power system from total collapse,” he added.  According to Matona Sunday’s shedding will build up reserves for the week ahead however with increased demand during peak evening hours, there is a risk for load shedding between 6 pm and 8pm on Monday.

If the capacity stays at the same level and the country begins to experience water constraints by Wednesday, Eskom will consider Stage 1 load shedding on Thursday which will see people sitting without power the entire day. The company may even consider Stage 1 load shedding as early as Wednesday for a period of four to six hours.

An investigation into the cause of the collapse at the power station is already underway however Matona asserts that it is an isolated incident specific to the coal infrastructure at Majuba. The latest civil visual inspection was conducted on the Majuba Power Station in September 2013, by an external specialist, and the concrete was found to be in good condition.

Matona apologised to electricity consumers on behalf of Eskom and called on the public to assist the supplier in alleviating the pressure on the grid. He asked consumers to switch off air-conditioning, all non-essential appliances and geysers and pool pumps all day until 10 pm. “The power system remains vulnerable all day until 10 pm,” he said.

He urged the public to respond to Power Alert messages by turning off all appliances that are not being used.  Load shedding schedules are available on Eskom’s load shedding website and municipal customers should contact their municipalities for details.