Eskom suspends load shedding earlier than planned
Eskom has announced that load shedding is suspended, coming far sooner than expected.
At midday today, the national power utility halted load shedding. South Africans can expect to wait until later this afternoon for an update on what is in store for load shedding in the next coming weeks.
This follows the utility announcing both Stage 1 and 2 load shedding this weekend, with Stage 1 originally planned for this Sunday until 16h00 and Stage 2 following until midnight.
The suspension has also resulted in planned Stage 2 load shedding for Monday (7 November), awaiting confirmation in an update.
Suspended load shedding marks a slight moment of reprieve from South Africa’s worst year of load shedding. Even with two months left of the year – it still measures as the worst year yet.
Eskom has been implementing load shedding for weeks on end; the government has fast-tracked legislation to address the situation; however, little progress is seen by the average South African.
Breakdowns, as well as planned maintenance at certain critical stations, have plagued the utility with the most recent at Camden, Duvha, Kusile, and Majuba power stations.
As per the last update by Eskom, the power utility is currently sitting with 4,836 MW on planned maintenance, while another 14,509 MW of capacity is unavailable due to breakdowns.
Alongside breakdowns, financial services firm PwC, noted the following other negative factors such as an ageing fleet, a major shortfall in skills, crime, corruption and all-around mismanagement.
These have all accumulated to leave the group with a massive shortfall in energy and insufficient resources to deal with the infrastructure crumbling around it.
Loadshedding has been suspended at 12:00 today. Eskom will this afternoon publish a statement about the loadshedding profile for next week.
— Eskom Hld SOC Ltd (@Eskom_SA) November 6, 2022
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