While the city of Cape Town has enjoyed more hours of electricity than the rest of the country, Eskom Chief Operating Officer, Jan Oberholzer, has warned of another 18 months of rolling blackouts and that loadshedding would persist until enough generating capacity was added to meet demands.
Speaking at the Agri SA conference on Thursday, the COO said that the power utility was going to go through a tough time over the next year, adding that while Eskom were working to alleviate the country’s energy crisis, it may be necessary for the utility to take a “bold step” and implement so-called Stage 2 loadshedding,in which 2,000 megawatts are cut from the national grid for a lengthy period, in order to enable Eskom to carry out necessary maintenance.
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“People can then plan accordingly,” added Oberholzer.
Meanwhile, Cape Town Mayor, Geordin Hill-Lewis, said that the residents of the city had been protected from more than 1 100 hours of Eskom’s 1 900 hours of load-shedding between February 2022 and September 2022.
“While the City is currently protecting customers again from loadshedding in the evenings, I am encouraged to see how much loadshedding relief we have been able to provide this year,” said the mayor.
“We are only able to do this because we ensure our Steenbras plant is properly maintained and that we invest in our energy infrastructure for reliable services. It is important for Capetonians to understand that when the City protects its customers from some of the impacts of load-shedding, it is also to the benefit of all as critical infrastructure and the City’s own electricity network are protected so that service delivery can continue. Over time, we will be able to end load-shedding as many of our projects that are currently underway, are implemented,’ added Hill-Lewis.
Loadshedding will be downgraded nationally to Stage 1 at 4pm today.
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Picture: Pexel