Durban - While Eskom has ruled out loadshedding for the remainder of the year, the power giant is urging residents to still use electricity sparingly over the festive season.
Eskom said it remains cognisant of its commitment to addressing the challenges pertaining to deterioration in generation performance, adding that they are taking advantage of the low electricity demand during the festive season to intensify plant maintenance and fast-track recovery of stock levels to grid code heights.
"This is in line with the organisation’s nine-point system recovery plan aimed at improving generation performance and returning the energy availability factor (EAF) to 75% by November 2019. These concerted efforts will result in a higher-than-usual number of coal trucks, especially on the major roads to and from the coal-fired power stations and coal mines, mostly situated in the Mpumalanga Province," Eskom Group Chief Executive, Phakamani Hadebe, said.
He said while the restoration of the power system is an overarching objective, the safety of all South Africans on our roads remains a priority.
"We therefore urge our people to be vigilant and obey the rules of the road at all times.Eskom will stop coal haulage during high-peak days where the volume of travellers increases on the roads from December 24 to December 27 and again from December 31 to January 1, 2019," he said.
He said furthermore, noting that Mpumalanga is the gateway to neighbouring countries, namely eSwatini and Mozambique, South Africans planning to travel to these countries over this period are urged to properly plan their trips, taking into account the high number of coal trucks as well as the operating hours of the border gates to these countries to avoid last minute rush.