Loadshedding was suspended early on Sunday morning after more than a day of power cuts, reports Cape {town} Etc.
This follows the announcement by Power utility Eskom that stage three load shedding will begin on Friday at 5 pm and continue through the weekend.
This was expected to continue until Sunday night but was suspended early.
In a short statement on Sunday, Eskom announced that load shedding was stopped at 6 am after the sufficient replenishment of emergency reserves.
For the past week, Eskom’s power output has been squeezed after the unexpected breakdown of six units at Matimba and Lethabo, News24 reports.
At the same time, more units were offline elsewhere due to ramped-up maintenance.
In response, the utility has been burning large amounts of diesel to fuel its emergency power generation units, and by Friday, it depleted the reserves at these turbines.
According to Eskom Group Chief Executive, Dan Marokane, the blackouts were a ‘temporary setback’ as the group insists loadshedding is largely behind us due to structural improvements in the generation fleet.
‘Over the past seven days, we have experienced several breakdowns that require extended repair times. This has necessitated the use of all our emergency reserves, which now need to be replenished over the weekend,’ concluded Marokane.
‘The structural improvements and efficiency gain we have made to our coal-fired generation fleet to date are safe, and the R16.30 billion saved in diesel spend from 1 April 2024 to 30 January 2025 is also safe,’ said Group Executive Generation, Bheki Numalo.
‘The weekend loadshedding allows for the replenishment of the Open-Cycle Gas Turbines and pumped storage reserves in preparation for next week.’
‘We are committed to ensuring that South Africa is in no way returning to the levels of loadshedding that we experienced in 2023,’ concluded Numalo.
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Picture: Eskom
