Power system to be stable this festive season

Friday, December 19, 2014

Pretoria - Although constrained, South Africa’s power system is expected to remain stable for this week and for the rest of the festive season, said power utility Eskom.

“The power system is expected to remain constrained but stable this week and the rest of the festive season and as a result the risk of load-shedding is low during this period,” said the utility in its system status bulletin on Thursday.

However, the system remains vulnerable meaning that any extra load or faults in the system may necessitate the need to implement load shedding.

“With many industries winding down their business for the festive season, coupled with return to service of some of our power generating units and building up of our emergency reserves, Eskom is cautiously confident that it will not have to implement load shedding during this period. We will use this period of low electricity demand to intensify our plant maintenance programme.”

Eskom called on all South Africans to pull together over the next few months and use electricity sparingly.

Earlier this month, the utility said that although the prognosis for power supply over the festive season is not looking bad, Eskom on Monday did not rule out the possibility of load shedding.

Addressing reporters at a state of the power system media briefing earlier this month, Eskom Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Tshediso Matona said that 6 000 MW of power will return to the grid this month.

The briefing came as South Africans across the country have been subjected to load shedding incidents in recent weeks. – SAnews.gov.za