Eskom says system is under ‘severe pressure’, urges South Africans to use power sparingly

After a weekend of no power outages, South Africans are anticipating load-shedding after Eskom announced on Monday its system was under pressure.

The power utility urged the public to save power by switching off non-essential appliances. 

“Our power system is under severe pressure. Please switch off all unnecessary lights, your geyser, pool pump, and non-essential appliances,” it said. 

Eskom told TimesLIVE load-shedding may be implemented at short notice.

“While no load-shedding has been implemented at this stage, Eskom requests the public to reduce the usage of electricity as the power system is severely constrained. Load-shedding may be required at short notice should any further generation breakdowns occur, or should some of the generating units not return to service as expected.

“Over the past 24 hours, Eskom teams returned a generation unit each at Camden, Kendal and Medupi power stations. Over the same period, two generation units; one at Arnot and another at Hendrina tripped while a unit each at Arnot and Lethabo were forced to shut down,” said Eskom. 

South Africans experienced various stages of load-shedding last week due to a constrained power system.

The power utility ramped up load-shedding to stage 4 last Wednesday after the Medupi, Kusile and Matla power stations tripped and a unit each at the Lethabo and Arnot stations were shut down. 

Public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan briefed the media last week on the state of the power utility and announced load-shedding would be suspended over the weekend ahead of Monday’s local government elections. 

Gordhan said Eskom’s poor electricity supply demonstrated a need for expertise at the power utility and called on the company’s board to acquire the necessary skills to tackle load-shedding. 

“It is quite clear within Eskom itself, expertise is required and the board has been instructed to take whatever measures necessary to bring in the necessary expertise to back up and ensure the proper level of professionalism and engineering rigour is applied within the Eskom environment,” he said.