State-owned power utility Eskom on Monday reported that it continued to make progress with its maintenance programme, and that the performance of its power stations had improved since last week.

However, in its second weekly ‘state of the power system’ bulletin, the utility said that the system remained tight and again urged consumers to cut electricity use by 10%.

The capacity available to meet this evening’s peak demand is 33 776 MW, including the open-cycle gas turbines, while demand is forecast at 31 781 MW. Current planned maintenance had resulted in 4 661 MW not being available, while unplanned outages resulted in 4 274 MW of additional capacity not being available.

Peak demand for the rest of this week is forecast to be 31 825 MW on Tuesday, 32 024 MW on Wednesday, 32 111 MW on Thursday, 32 015 MW on Friday, 29 933 MW on Saturday and 29 475 MW on Sunday.

The bulletin also reported on the past week’s peak demand and the available capacity to meet it.

On Sunday, the utility experienced peak demand of 30 636 MW, met by available capacity of 32 338 MW, on Saturday, peak demand was 29 454 MW, met by available capacity of 33 482 MW. On Friday, peak demand of 30 197 MW was met by available capacity of 32 088 MW, while on Thursday, peak demand of 30 636 MW was met by available capacity of 31 832 MW.

Last week Eskom warned of a high risk of rolling blackouts after a temporary loss of supply from Mozambique’s Cahora Bassa hydroelectric power station.

The bulletin is in line with Eskom’s commitment to transparent and regular communication on the power system, which is expected to be constrained for at least the next two years.