Johannesburg - Power utility Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter has assured that they are doing everything in their might to not go beyond load shedding Stage 6.
Eskom updated the country via a press briefing about plans for rolling blackouts yesterday.
On Sunday, the power utility implemented Stage 6 load shedding and said this was until further notice.
Eskom said it implemented Stage 6 power cuts amid units at a number of power stations tripping; breakdowns then amounted to 19 385 MW of generating capacity, while 3 566 MW of generating capacity was out of service for planned maintenance.
Eskom said it intended to restore approximately 3000MW of power to the system by the end of yesterday.
De Ruyter said this would help alleviate the pressure of the rolling power cuts.
“I can give the country the assurance that we are doing everything in our power to ensure that we do not end up in a situation where we go beyond that (Stage 8). I think the further 2000MW that remain at our disposal are more than adequate to have any further issues. But of course, the system has an inherent lack of reliability, and that gives us the need to plan for these unforeseen events. So, at this point in time, the anticipation is that we will remain at Stage 6 load shedding until Wednesday,” De Ruyter said.
He said this would help alleviate the pressure of the rolling power cuts.
In light of fears and reports of a possible load shedding Stage 8, De Ruyter said the risk of a total grid collapse was very low.
“At this point, load shedding Stage 6 will be rolled out until Wednesday evening peak, then on Thursday we will start phasing that down to load shedding Stage 4,” he said.
De Ruyter said blackouts remained very low because of the levels of load shedding, but also because of the support of their major industrial and mining customers in implementing load curtailment, which then aids in managing demand during peaks when Eskom has very high demand.
“So, we do have contingency plans in place should there be further loss of generation capacity. At this point in time, we do not anticipate that there is a risk of going beyond Stage 8, so that is part of our contingency planning that is in place. I don’t particularly want to elaborate too much on that,” he said.
The Star