South Africa celebrates four weeks of no load shedding

Despite the wet‚ icy weather affecting much of the country‚ Eskom says that no load shedding is planned for Saturday‚ which means the power utility has managed to keep the lights on for four weeks without the need to load shed.

“Eskom has been able to supply the country’s electricity needs and do maintenance without implementing load shedding for the past 27 days. Our maintenance plan is aimed at increasing the reliability of our plant‚ and this will in turn increase our operating reserves and stabilise the grid‚” Eskom said on Saturday.

“No load shedding is taking place at the moment as the power system is currently stable. Our aspiration is not to implement load shedding at all‚ but the reality is that we operate a very constrained and vulnerable power system. We will continue to monitor the situation‚ and should it be necessary to implement load shedding‚ we will communicate this accordingly‚” the electricity provider added.

It appealed to consumers to continue to reduce their electricity usage throughout the day as well as be aware of the need to save more during the peak periods from 6am to 9am and 5pm and 9pm.

“Commercial customers‚ particularly shopping centres and office blocks‚ can also make a big difference by switching off non-essential lights and not leaving office equipment such as photocopiers and computers in standby mode after hours‚” it said.


--timeslive