Eskom confirmed with a great deal of optimism that loadshedding may be suspended on Friday morning and not return in the foreseeable future.
Loadshedding could come to an end this weekend
The power utility happily announced that not only was it able to return many of its faulty power generation units to service, but that total breakdowns had been reduced to a new record-low of 11 224MW.
“This has been made possible by the return to service of many of the units that had suffered breakdowns over the past two weeks, and a sufficient recovery in emergency generation reserves,” the national power supplier wrote.
The increase in capacity has also allowed Eskom to up the ante on its reliability repairs programme, increasing planned maintenance by 14.04% to 7 030MW, from 6 164MW on Tuesday 9 November 2021.
The strides made by technical staff allowed enough time for the state-owned entity (SOE) to replenish its emergency generation reserves and pave the way for rotational power cuts to be reduced to stage 2 until 05:00 on Friday.
Thereafter, Eskom announced, loadshedding will be suspended.
“Eskom thanks all our customers for their patience and assistance during this period of loadshedding. We appeal to all South Africans to continue using electricity sparingly and to switch off non-essential items. Taken together, these small cumulative savings result in large savings in electricity capacity and reduce the possibility of loadshedding,” the power utility added.
Why does Eskom implement power cuts?
South Africans will celebrate the reprieve from blackouts cautiously, fully aware of the possible return of loadshedding, should demand for electricity outweigh supply.
According to Eskom, rotational power cuts are implemented as a means “to protect the electricity power system from a total blackout.”
In the event that there is an overwhelming demand for electricity, with our power grid not able to supplement this need with efficient supply, South Africa’s power system could collapse.
While in developed countries, a rare event of this nature can be mitigated in a matter of hours or, at worst, days, South Africa’s inability to tap into power sources from neighbouring countries or cities means that if a blackout would occur, it would take at least two weeks to restart the grid, “energising one power plant at a time and one section of the country at a time.”
“This is why we use loadshedding to manage our power system and protect it from such an event,” Eskom said.