https://www.polity.org.za
Deepening Democracy through Access to Information
Home / News / All News RSS ← Back
Business|Coal|Financial|Power|Service|System|Maintenance
Business|Coal|Financial|Power|Service|System|Maintenance
business|coal|financial|power|service|system|maintenance
Close

Email this article

separate emails by commas, maximum limit of 4 addresses

Sponsored by

Close

Article Enquiry

Eskom suspends rolling blackouts as demand ebbs

Close

Embed Video

Eskom suspends rolling blackouts as demand ebbs

 Eskom suspends rolling blackouts as demand ebbs
Photo by Bloomberg

8th January 2021

By: African News Agency

SAVE THIS ARTICLE      EMAIL THIS ARTICLE

Font size: -+

South African electricity company Eskom said on Friday it was suspending rolling power cuts implemented this week as demand had dropped ahead of the weekend.

Eskom, which supplies about 95 percent of the country’s electricity mainly through coal, however urged consumers to continue using the resource sparingly as the system remained vulnerable and unstable.

Advertisement

“We will use the lower demand opportunity during the weekend to continue replenishing the emergency generation reserves in preparation for the expected higher demand during the coming week,” it said.

“In this period, Eskom will also continue to pursue reliability maintenance as planned and previously communicated. This will continue to put pressure on the generation plant going into the week. However, maintenance is necessary in order to improve the reliability and performance of the power stations.”

Advertisement

The company said it currently had 6 060 megawatts of capacity on planned maintenance, while another 13 206 MW was unavailable due to breakdowns and other load losses. Its teams were working to return as many of these units to service as soon as possible.

Eskom has struggled to meet demand over the last decade, with its generating units frequently breaking down largely due to years of poor maintenance.

It has also been plagued by financial woes largely blamed on mismanagement by former senior executives.

In a bid to turn around the state-owned company’s fortunes and have it better-run, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said in 2019 the government would split Eskom’s business into three separate entities focusing on generation, transmission and distribution.

EMAIL THIS ARTICLE      SAVE THIS ARTICLE

To subscribe email subscriptions@creamermedia.co.za or click here
To advertise email advertising@creamermedia.co.za or click here

Comment Guidelines

About

Polity.org.za is a product of Creamer Media.
www.creamermedia.co.za

Other Creamer Media Products include:
Engineering News
Mining Weekly
Research Channel Africa

Read more

Subscriptions

We offer a variety of subscriptions to our Magazine, Website, PDF Reports and our photo library.

Subscriptions are available via the Creamer Media Store.

View store

Advertise

Advertising on Polity.org.za is an effective way to build and consolidate a company's profile among clients and prospective clients. Email advertising@creamermedia.co.za

View options
Free daily email newsletter Register Now