Will resume on Sunday afternoon at 5pm till 10pm
ESKOM last night announced the suspension of load shedding, saying there was an improvement in emergency generation reserves.
The power utility said load shedding would resume on Sunday afternoon at 5pm to replenish the emergency generation reserves for the week ahead.
“With an adequate improvement in generation reserves during the past 24 hours load shedding will be suspended from 22:00 tonight,” Eskom said.
“In order to continue with the replenishment of the emergency generation reserves in preparation for the week ahead, Stage 1 load shedding will again be implemented between 5pm and 10pm on Sunday night.”
Eskom warned the power system remained constrained and vulnerable.
South Africans were again urged to reduce their electricity usage daily between 5pm and 10pm in winter when the demand was the highest.
“These capacity constraints will continue for the foreseeable future and all South Africans are urged to reduce their use of electricity,” Eskom said.
On Friday, Eskom suspended load shedding from midday on Friday until 5pm so that Parliament could pass the Appropriation Bill without a glitch.
Eskom said this is in response to a request from the Deputy Speaker of Parliament for a series of Appropriation Bills to be passed via a virtual sitting.
“Passing these Bills is essential to keeping the government operating, as without the relevant appropriations there will be no funding for key state functions such as hospitals, law enforcement and other essential services,” Eskom said at the time.
Eskom has struggled to meet demand over the last decade, mainly as a result of its generating units frequently breaking down after years of poor maintenance.
Most of Eskom’s 15 coal-fired power stations are more than 40 years old. Eskom also has one nuclear-powered power station and nine smaller stations that run on a combination of diesel, pumped storage and hydroelectricity.
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