CAPACITY SHORTAGE
Labour unrest forces Eskom to start power cuts
SA faces power cuts, with 15 units down at nine Eskom stations, taking over 6,000MW, or 13% of the utility’s output, off the national grid, an internal document seen by Reuters shows. Eskom provides more than 90% of the country’s power, but the state-owned utility has been hit by labour unrest over wage talks as it tries to reverse a decade of financial decline by cutting costs. The power utility said on Tuesday it had implemented controlled electricity cuts from 5pm to 10pm, citing "a shortage of capacity" after power supply was affected by labour unrest by workers who are demanding higher wages. Power cuts during the winter are likely to cause hardship for millions of people. The document, sent to senior staff of the struggling utility, shows that four units are down at the Arnot station in Mpumalanga, contradicting an earlier claim by Eskom that only one of the six coal-fired units there was not functioning.
Reasons cited for the outages at the 15 units in total include a w...
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