Last night the company terminated load shedding at 10pm following a six-hour long series of load shedding. This morning, the public electricity entity’s twitter handle, @Eskom_SA tweeted, “The load shedding prognosis for today remains high and is dependent on the performance of the power plant.” Meanwhile the company’s spokesperson Khulu Phasiwe also warned that the power grid would remain constrained for the rest of the week.
“The electricity supply system remains very vulnerable for the rest of the week due to a shortage of generation capacity as several units are currently out of service due to planned and unplanned outages.” Phasiwe said any unforeseen incident in the power system could trigger the implementation of load shedding. He apologised for the inconvenience to affected customers and acknowledged all electricity users for responding to Eskom’s messages to save electricity by switching off non-essential appliances . “Every little bit of saving counts in minimising the severity of load shedding,” he said
Phasiwe said Eskom would like to assure customers that load shedding is a necessary measure to protect the power system.
Phaiswe also called on all customers to continue to reduce the load on the electricity grid by urgently switching off geysers, air conditioners, pool pumps and all non-essential appliances throughout the day, which will reduce the severity of load shedding. He added that commercial customers, particularly shopping centers and office blocks, could make a big difference by switching off non-essential lights and not leaving office equipment such as photocopiers and computers in standby mode after hours.
Eskom will use the published load shedding schedules which are available on the Eskom website. Eskom customers can also contact the customer call center on 0860 037 566. Municipal customers should contact their municipalities for information. Eskom will provide regular updates on the status of the power system through all the media platforms.
