POWER utility Eskom has announced on Wednesday that load shedding will be suspended at 5am on Thursday.
It has also warned that even though load shedding has been suspended, there are “significant risks to the system” and load shedding could again be implemented at short notice.
“We have used the past six days of load shedding to conduct some repairs to generating units and to continue with the maintenance programme. Even though we were able to replenish emergency generation reserves, we have had to continue relying on these to support power system over this period,” said Eskom in a statement released on Wednesday.
“While Eskom is currently able to suspend load shedding, there are still significant risks to some generating units, which could force Eskom to implement load shedding at short notice, should we lose any further generation capacity,” added the power utility.
Eskom urged the public to continue using electricity sparingly, in order to minimise the possibility of further load shedding.
Eskom said it has recovered some emergency generation reserve capacity to support the system, but the recovery in generation capacity has not been sufficient to alleviate the system constraints.
Total breakdowns currently amount to 14 868MW, while planned maintenance is 5 277MW of capacity.
Returning units are expected at Kriel, Majuba, Hendrina, Lethabo, and Tutuka power stations.
IOL