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JUST IN | Eskom to implement stage 2 load shedding overnight

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Eskom has announced that it will implement stage 2 load shedding on Wednesday night from 22:00 to 05:00, and again between the same times on Thursday night. 

The utility said it implemented the cuts to recover and preserve emergency generation reserves that were utilised to support the power system following the earlier than planned shutdown at Unit 1 at the Koeberg nuclear power station, and delays in the return of other units to service. 

There is currently 6 672MW of capacity offline due to planned maintenance and 12 073MW unavailable because of unplanned maintenance. 

Eskom said on Monday that there had been an increasing leak rate at one of three steam generators at Koeberg's Unit 1.

"Although the leak rate was well within the safety limits, a conservative decision was made to take Koeberg Unit 1 offline for repairs," the statement read at the time.

Eskom was conducting routine maintenance on the unit as well as refueling. These were originally scheduled for the start of February.

Last year Eskom introduced Stage 4 load shedding after Unit 1 tripped. The fault related to a seawater pump which cools the reactors,

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