South Africa May Reduce Power Cuts

The state run South African power utility has continued to shed 5,000 megawatts of capacity from the national grid and will possibly only shed it down to 4,000 megawatts come September 22.

It is likely that some generation units will resume operation, however, the utility deems it necessary to stay on course with what it has referred to as stage 5-loadshedding, as it will reduce the use of the emergency generation reserves, Eskom Holdings SOC Ltd. stated in a statement published on Twitter on Tuesday 20th September.

The statement clearly indicated the likelihood that one stage is reduced by Thursday. Power station malfunctions saw Eskom remove 6,000 megawatts from the grid over the weekend.

The utility is barely able to barely able to meet electricity, mostly due to outdated and unreliable infrastructure and this has had a direct impact on economic growth and ease of doing business. 

According to Eskom, emergency generation reserves are “severely constrained by extensive utilization to supplement generation capacity,” Eskom said.