Embattled power utility Eskom has announced that load shedding will be suspended at 5am on Saturday morning.
The suspension of load shedding comes after almost a month of constant power cuts at different stages with stage 6 being the highest that was reached.
“While the generation capacity constraints persist, the suspension of load shedding is possible due to the anticipated lower weekend demand, as well as adequate levels of emergency generation reserves,” Eskom said.
“Eskom will publish a further update on Sunday afternoon, or as soon as there are any significant changes.”
The group said that a generation unit each at Camden, Grootvlei, Hendrina, Kendal, Kriel, Majuba and Tutuka stations have returned to service since Thursday afternoon.
A generation unit at Duvha Power Station was taken offline for repairs.
“We currently have 5,512MW on planned maintenance, while another 13,484MW of capacity is unavailable due to breakdowns,” Eskom said.
The suspension comes after almost a month long of load shedding. The latest power cuts began on 6 September 2022 when Eskom implemented intermittent load shedding.
According to data from popular load shedding tracking app EskomSePush, the power utility had implemented 2,071 hours of load shedding this year.
The hours of load shedding implemented in 2022 are closing in on double the 1,153 hours which was recorded last year, which was Eskom’s previous worst outages.
Eskom has urged South Africans to use electricity sparingly as load shedding will be suspended.
Source: The Citizen, My Broadband, Eyewitness News, Business Tech, image from Twitter: @Stoute_SA