While construction workers continued their stayaway at Medupi power station on Monday, the risk of load shedding throughout the week was highly likely, according to Eskom.

Construction workers continued their stayaway in solidarity with about 1 700 workers who were fired or faced disciplinary action following a 25 March strike, the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) said.

Steve Nhlapo, head of collective bargaining at Numsa, on Monday said that Medupi’s construction site was shut down.

Nhlapo said Numsa and Eskom’s Medupi leadership were about to meet to discuss the situation, and that there would be an update at 4pm.

Engineers told Eskom’s leadership on Monday that the system would be highly constrained for the entire week due to planned and unplanned maintenance, Eskom spokesperson Khulu Phasiwe said.

Friday’s Eskom update indicated that there would only be 29,9GW to cope with Monday’s 31,4GW demand, indicating that load shedding would be necessary.

Tuesday and Wednesday had similar forecasts, with 30,4GW of capacity to meet Tuesday’s 31,4GW of demand and 30,4MW to meet Wednesday’s 31,6GW.

These forecasts would be updated later on Monday. — Fin24