In a statement released earlier today, the ailing entity said, “The power system is stable at present and should there be a need to load shed in the evening, Eskom will advise the public accordingly. We would like to thank all electricity users for responding to our message to save.”
Meanwhile, this morning at a special joint meeting of the public enterprises and energy portfolio committees of the National Assembly at Parliament to scrutinise the ongoing load shedding, Eskom’s acting chief executive, Brian Molefe, said South Africans should not ‘beat up’ Eskom for load shedding, as it was producing power 90 percent of the time. “Let us not beat up Eskom… as if we don’t have power for 90 percent of the time,” Molefe said.
He said there was around a 3 000 megawatts gap between demand and output caused by maintenance and other outage issues, and that stage 1 load shedding for the typical family was only two to four hours a week. Molefe added that it was 164 hours of power out of the 168 hours in a week. He stated that it is just that, at this point in time, Eskom had to catch up with maintenance.
Molefe also said that the 4 percent to 10 percent load shedding was costing the economy ‘1.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) per annum’. He said new plants can fill the 3 000 MW gap within months, but warned of load shedding for another two years.
What changes have you made to your lifestyle to cope with loadshedding? Comment below, and let us know.
