No load shedding is expected in Grahamstown today, 11 December, and no rolling blackouts are planned for this weekend.
No load shedding is expected in Grahamstown today, 11 December, and no rolling blackouts are planned for this weekend.
"There are no plans to load shed at the moment, but that could change," Eskom's media desk told Grocott's Mail at midday.
"The risk is low."
The schedule may change hour by hour as Eskom responds to risks to energy production. These include rain, which wets the coal.
Eskom provides daily status updates and forecasts at: loadshedding.eskom.co.za
The site states which stage of loadshedding the nation is currently under. In Stage one, rolling blackouts occur once every other day; Stage 2 sees them daily, and Stage 3 schedules at least two power outages daily.
No Stages are mentioned on the website today, and the advanced schedule shows them to be Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays through the holiday, meaning Christmas and New Year's Day will be filled with electricity.
"That's certainly what we're aiming for," the Media Desk said. However, at his Power System Status Update delivered at Megawatt Park, Sunningdale, on Monday 8 December, Eskom Chief Executive Tshediso Matona said the probability of load shedding remains medium until 15 December.
After that it will be low to medium until mid-January, should no additional problems arise. This is because demand for electricity is expected to decrease as industry closes for the holidays.
"We will continue to do maintenance on our power stations. The system will remain constrained, but manageable," he said. An average of 1 800MW is being fed into the national grid per day.
The amount of energy the parastatal is able to produce is perilously close to insufficient for the nation's needs so that when problems occur, such as the collapse in November of a coal storage silo, blackouts and loadshedding occur. Other potential problems include a breakdown in the feeders that take coal to the plant, the risk of rain wetting the coal and the safety of personnel due to the increased use of trucks.
"These risks are being actively managed," Matona said. As always, Eskom urged South Africans to switch off lights and appliances that aren't being used and to not run non-essential equipment such as pool pumps during peak morning and evening hours.
