Eskom suspends load shedding after shock return of power cuts.

By Lehlohonolo Lehana.

Load shedding has been suspended as of 6am on Sunday (2 February), state owned power utility Eskom said in a brief alert this morning.

“Due to the sufficient replenishment of emergency reserves, load shedding was suspended in the morning. Eskom will provide updates if any significant changes occur.”

Eskom said that the return of load shedding at short notice this week was due to it being hit by a ‘perfect storm’ of events.

The group suffered the breakdown of six units at key power stations early in the week; there were delays in returning downed units to service; and its maintenance programme continued unabated.

This led to the group depending on its open-cycle gas turbines to cover the energy shortfall, using up its reserves.

One the reserves were depleted, it needed time to restock for the coming week ahead.

Load shedding hit after 10 months of no nationwide scheduled outages.

Eskom said that the return would be temporary and stressed that performances in Eskom’s operations and at its plants means that the country won’t be returning to the levels of load shedding seen in 2023.

In a briefing on Friday, Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, insisted new round of load shedding was only temporary setback, with government likely to announce the definitive end to load shedding soon.

“We are within touching distance of ending load shedding,” the minister said, noting that Koeberg’s unit 2 had come back online in December and the expectation is that Kusile’s unit 6 would be synchronised to the grid in February. Medupi’s unit 4 would finally be brought back online by March.

“If you put all of those together, it’s 2 500MW [in additional power generation],” he said.

The final piece of the puzzle is the permanent solution for the smokestacks at Kusile, which is under way with affected units back online fully in March and in June.

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