China News Service, Johannesburg, September 4th (Reporter Damon) On the evening of September 4th, local time, South Africa’s National Power Company announced through social media that it had to upgrade the nationwide power cut level again on a large scale in the early morning of the 5th due to the failure of several generator sets.
Since the second half of this year, the problem of power rationing that has plagued South Africa for many years has been continuously alleviated. In August, South Africa’s Minister of Electricity Ramohopa once declared that with the improvement of generator sets and the improvement of the efficiency of the expert team, South Africa will not raise the power limit level again in the short term. After that, for more than a month, South Africa’s power cut level remained at a low level of one to three.
However, just entering September, South Africa is once again facing a power supply crisis. According to the South African National Power Company, the resumption of operation of the two generator sets that failed last week had to be postponed due to the complicated situation. In addition, in the past two days, at least four units have needed emergency repairs one after another, so there is a gap in power generation in South Africa, and we have to adopt the way of raising the power limit level to deal with this crisis.
Under this circumstance, the South African National Power Company announced that from the early morning of the 5 th, the nationwide power cut level will be raised to a higher level of six, which means that South Africa will cut power generation by 6,000 megawatts every day.
Regarding the upgrade of the power cut level, Ramohopa responded that timely maintenance of the emergency repair generator set can prevent a wider and higher level of power cut, thus minimizing the damage of power cut to the South African economy. At the same time, South Africa’s national power company called on the public to minimize unnecessary electricity consumption to reduce the demand gap.
As one of the most important state-owned enterprises in South Africa, the South African National Power Company is currently in deep debt crisis. Affected by multiple factors, such as frequent generator failures, lack of equipment maintenance and rising fuel prices, the power cut-off order has gradually become the "normal" since the outbreak of the new crown pneumonia in South Africa. (End)