Eskom warns that load shedding is still “highly possible”

ESKOM has thanked the public for its patience after it announced that it would be suspending load shedding, but warned that power cuts remain ’’highly possible’’.

In a statement, Eskom said its generation capacity had vastly improved since Sunday evening, enabling the power utility to keep the lights on.

“Over the past 24 hours, our generation capacity has improved following the return of some of our generators to service. Our teams have successfully returned two generation units, at Kusile and Kriel, and one at Tutuka power station, to service, and another set of two generation units are expected to return to service tomorrow while emergency generation reserves have also adequately recovered.”

Eskom asked for the public’s co-operation in ensuring that electricity supply to their homes continued.

“While the supply situation has improved at this point, we would like to request people at home to please continue using electricity sparingly as the system is vulnerable and unpredictable.

“As we have previously stated, the risk of load shedding remains highly possible while we conduct increased reliability maintenance.

“Currently, we have 4,920MW on planned maintenance, while another 13,897MW of capacity is unavailable due to unplanned maintenance, breakdowns and outage delays.

“Our teams are hard at work returning as much of this capacity to service as soon as possible.

“We would like to thank the people of South Africa for their patience and understanding during the load shedding,” it said.