Ramaphosa warns risk of load shedding remains despite gains

President Cyril Ramaphosa has warned that while load shedding has been suspended for over a month and a half, there is a risk of the rolling blackouts returning.

Ramaphosa made the remarks in his weekly newsletter “From the Desk of the President” on Monday.

South Africans have welcomed the extended suspension of the rolling blackouts after experiencing unrelenting bouts of power cuts.

Not out of woods

Ramaphosa said the Energy Action Plan (EAP) government announced in 2022 is working to reduce load shedding, but warned that it is too early to say that the rolling blackouts have been brought to an end.

“We must be clear that we are not out of the woods yet. The risk of load shedding remains. We must therefore all continue to play our part by using electricity sparingly and paying for the electricity that we use.”

Ramaphosa highlighted the progress government has made in reducing the severity of load shedding.

“The sustained improvement in the performance of Eskom’s power stations – as well as the new generation capacity we have added to our energy system – gives us hope that the end of load shedding is in sight.

“Better maintained and more reliable power stations have increased the country’s Energy Availability Factor (EAF), which is the amount of electricity available from our power stations at any given time. The EAF has been above 60% since April, compared to 53% over the same period last year,” Ramaphosa said.

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Load shedding reduction

Ramaphosa said load shedding has been reduced due to a combination of fixing Eskom, unlocking private investment in energy generation, accelerating the procurement of new capacity and supporting rooftop solar.

“While we have made progress in addressing the current crisis, we have also put our country on a clear path towards a reliable, affordable and sustainable supply of energy. We have embarked on fundamental reforms to the energy sector that will ensure we don’t experience load shedding in the future.”

Ramaphosa said government is determined to stay the course and to continue the work until the energy crisis is “brought to an end once and for all”.

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