File picture: Reuters, Siphiwe Sibeko
SOUTH Africans can sit back and enjoy their Sunday without state-inflicted power outages after Eskom announced that load shedding would continue to be suspended until Monday afternoon.
In a short statement issued by the power utility on Sunday morning, Eskom said that due to the return to service of Kusile 3, the sustained improved generation performance and the lower than anticipated demand for electricity, load shedding would be suspended until 4pm on Monday.
Thereafter, Stage 2 load shedding will be implemented.
Eskom said it would closely monitor the power system and communicate any change to load shedding should it be required.
Minister in the Presidency for Electricity, Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa is also expected to host his weekly media briefing to update on the implementation of the Energy Action Plan on Sunday.
Last week, Ramokgopa said that South Africa’s main prioity was to ensure that the national grid was expanded with great urgency.
In order to expand the national grid, Ramokgopa believes that South Africa will need more than R100 billion by the beginning of the next financial year.
Ramokgopa also noted that government would need more than R250 billion to expand the transmission grid over the next 10 years.
Ramokgopa recently met with a number of business leaders at the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. He discussed the financing of the grid expansion during the South African Transmission Financing Seminar.