Cape Town - Eskom has downgraded rotational power cuts to Stage 1 from 6 am on Friday morning after some of the utility's generating units returned to service. The utility says Stage 1 load shedding will continue until 11 pm on Friday.
On Thursday, Deputy President David Mabuza told attendees at the ANC's 108th birthday celebrations in the Northern Cape that Eskom had misled President Cyril Ramaphosa and that the SOE would not be able to solve the issues dogging it until maintenance work is done.
“It has misled the president, the day we went there with the president, I insisted on maintenance. Maintenance of these power stations is very important,” Mabuza said.
However, the presidency has denied that it was deceived by Eskom.
In a statement on Friday morning, Eskom said that it would continue to work around the clock to increase generating capacity and blamed years of "inadequate maintenance" for the system's vulnerability to breakdowns and unplanned outages.
"Our pumped storage schemes have been sufficiently replenished, and we continue to work on the levels of diesel at our open cycle gas turbine generators. These emergency reserves will be used to supplement generation capacity today," Eskom said.
"Our intention is, however, to use as little diesel as possible to manage our costs.Our diesel generators will therefore only be used in the event of emergencies to back up our other units," the embattled utility said.
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