Cold weather puts an end to day-time relief in load-shedding

Eskom on Monday announced an end to the relief in load-shedding it has offered consumers this winter as it grappled with increased demand caused by a cold front spreading across the country

The utility, which had seen a significant improvement in power generation at its plants because of fewer breakdowns experienced, had suspended day-time load-shedding for the past month.

On Monday — in the midst of a harsh cold front that resulted in below-zero temperatures in Gauteng, Western Cape and Eastern Cape in the morning, Eskom said it was implementing stage four load-shedding from 1pm until 5am on Tuesday morning to deal with higher electricity demand.

Acting spokesperson Daphne Mokwena said the utility was experiencing a slight reduction in generation capacity because of the weather conditions.

“Due to high demand and slight reduction in generation capacity, stage 4 load shedding will be implemented. Eskom will publish and update shortly. We plead with the public to switch off non-essential appliances to reduce demand,” she said.

The move to the higher stage of load-shedding comes after Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa on Sunday said significant improvements in the power generation system would allow Eskom to handle any additional surges in demand. 

He added that the electricity system had sufficient room to handle even the worst-case demand scenario during peak hours.

“The resolution of the load shedding issue is principally on your generation side. Even if demand were to surge to the worst-case scenario, if these machines were performing at the rate at which we were expecting them to, we shouldn’t have a problem. Even if it [demand] gets to 34 000MW or 36 00 MW, we shouldn’t have a problem,” Ramokgopa told a media briefing.

Eskom had initially announced it would continue the trend of suspending power cuts from 12am to 4pm this week because of “consistent available generation capacity”.