By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Eskom chief executive Andre de Ruyter says that the power utility has seen a good recovery since the country was forced to introduce stage 4 load shedding at the start of the week.
In a virtual media briefing on Wednesday (10 November), de Ruyter said that as of 15h00 there is 7,200MW of planned maintenance taking place. This means that units have deliberately been taken offline at a number of power stations for maintenance.
“Summer months typically have lower demand overall which means that this is the preferred time to do maintenance, but the increase in temperatures has led to an increase in water temperature which has led to unplanned breakdowns,” he said.
De Ruyter added that there is now 11,130MW off the grid due to unplanned outages or breakdowns – a significant improvement since the country moved to stage 4 load shedding, where at one point the utility faced as much as 17,000MW in unplanned outages.
He said that a return of a unit each at Matimba and Majuba later this evening should add a further 800MW to the grid, which will further help preserve reserves.
These improvements put the utility on track to lift load shedding on Saturday, provided no further breakdowns occur.
The current load shedding forecast is as follows:
- Stage 3 load shedding from 05h00 on Wednesday to 05h00 on Friday;
- Stage 2 load shedding from 05h00 on Friday to 05h00 on Saturday;
- Load shedding is expected to be lifted from 05h00 on Saturday.
Load shedding is expected to feature in South Africa for the foreseeable future.
For people living in the major metros, load shedding schedules are available here:
- City of Johannesburg
- City of Ekurhuleni
- City of Tshwane
- City of Cape Town (PDF)
- Nelson Mandela Bay
- eThekwini
- Manguang
- Buffalo City
For access to other load shedding schedules, Eskom has made them available on loadshedding.eskom.co.za.
Meanwhile de Ruyter is set to open a case of intimidation after receiving threats on social media.
“André de Ruiter [sic], Pravin Gordhan and other @Eskom_SA thugs. Let’s get their home addresses and publicize them here now. Let’s go to their houses, drag them out and moer them. We are gstvol (gatvol). Let’s get physical with these idiots. Now is the time #Azikhale,” read one of the tweets.
The tweet has since been removed by Twitter for violating its rules.
This week, De Ruyter was in the hot seat following massive load shedding across the country, which has led to some calling for his resignation.
In response to this, De Ruyter said: “We serve at the pleasure and discretion of the board. Of course, if the board considers it appropriate for other people and me to resign, then that is their decision to make. We have had no conversations in this regard so far, so I do not intend to resign of my own accord.”