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Cape Town - Eskom said on Friday it managed to avert load shedding despite some of its units tripping overnight and as electricity consumption increased amid warm weather conditions countrywide.
Eskom said in a statement on Friday evening the system was constrained but stable with no requirement to implement load shedding, after warning in the morning of a high risk of power cuts.
That made it 62 days of almost no load shedding. In this time Eskom implemented only 2 hours and 20 minutes of load shedding on September 14 due to increased electricity demand and a shortage of generation capacity due owing to power station units being on maintenance.
"We would like to thank our customers for using electricity sparingly as this goes a long a way in helping us manage the demand and supply of electricity and to eliminate the need for load shedding," Eskom said.
Public Enterprises Minister Lynne Brown said last week Eskom CEO Brian Molefe has managed an extremely tight electricity grid without implementing load shedding, this while maintenace was carried out, unit 2 at Koeberg was being refuelled and when Eskom lost 850MW of its 1 500MW from Cahora Bassa.
She said Molefe has now formed a balanced team and together (with chairperson Ben Ngubane), they have changed Eskom’s maintenance programme, which was normally scheduled from October until May to a 12-month schedule.
“They have succeeded to find the balance between continued maintenance and keeping the lights on. At the same time, they have increased plant stability.”
Eskom said load shedding was only implemented as a necessary measure to protect the power system and to ensure that maintenance was carried out in order to guarantee that its supply of electricity can be maintained in the long term.
