FOLLOWING unscheduled power cuts on Saturday afternoon and Monday evening, the Paarl Valley is likely to be hit by power cuts every day for the rest of the week, due to the generating shortage at Eskom.
Saturday’s blackout was the first ever load-shedding implimented on a Saturday.
The cause of the problem was four generators that had tripped on Friday evening.
Because Eskom did not have sufficient spare capacity (despite the lower demand over weekends), load shedding was implimented.
The generators are slowly being started up but not all are up and running yet, and spare capacity remains a problem, as a section of Koeberg is being serviced until 22 April.
So local residents would be wise to stock up on gas stoves and lights.
The whole of Paarl and Wellington was plunged into darkness unexpectedly on Monday night at 20:00. Some sections received power again between 21:30 and 22:00, while Paarl North and Paarl East remained dark until much later.
Power cuts can be expected every day, but normally blackouts should not last longer than two hours.
The schedule for Paarl/Wellington area on the Eskom website (www.eskom.co.za) indicates power cuts on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 20:00 to 22:30.
On Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays (and possibly Sundays) blackouts can be expected from 16:00 until 18:30 in local areas.
According to Eskom, the problem should be sorted out soon, but there are no assurances, the experts say.
Meanwhile Eskom has announced that it has approached a French company, Areva, and Westinghouse in the US, to bid on the construction of a another nuclear power station in South Africa (either in the Western or Eastern Cape). Construction will not be completed before 2016.
