No need to worry: Eskom calms fears of load shedding amid cold snap

As cold weather grips parts of the country, power utility Eskom says the big freeze is not putting heavy pressure on the power grid.

Vox Weather meteorologist Annette Botha told The Citizen Gauteng residents could face two weeks of cold weather, icy wind, rain and storms.

But Eskom board chairperson Mteto Nyati says this will not put a strain on the grid.

“We anticipated this. We needed to think way ahead. That is what we did when we ran maintenance in summer last year. We wanted to have the capacity to deal with the increased demand in winter.

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“Now we are sitting in a situation where on some of the days we have so much capacity that we have to turn down some of the [electricity generating] units,” he told broadcaster eNCA.

Good winter ahead

Nyati predicted a “good winter” ahead.

“We have not entered winter with this kind of scenario in five or six years.”

He said the utility‘s earlier projections of stage 2 load shedding during winter was a worst-case scenario and would only happen if there were serious breakdowns.

But power cuts are coming in Joburg

Despite this positivity, City of Johannesburg electricity supplier City Power said it is struggling with high demand during the cold weather and will implement “load reduction” next week.

Over 80 areas will be affected and grouped into 6 blocks. Each block will have their power cut for two and half hours daily until the network stabilises.

ALSO READ: Winter in the dark: Load reduction on the cards for some Joburg areas – City Power

The schedule will be implemented during peak hours, in the mornings between 4am to 10am and the evenings between 4pm to 10pm, the utility said.

“The decision to initiate load reduction follows extensive efforts to encourage customers to use electricity wisely and efficiently in recent weeks.

“Despite warnings about the constrained electricity network in the city, residents have not reduced their electricity consumption, and energy demand has continued to rise,” City Power said.

Additional reporting by Itumeleng Mafisa and Marizka Coetzer