Eskom issued a statement that it would continue to have a shortfall of more than 4 000 megawatts of generation capacity this year, which will continue to grow, increasing the risk of load shedding.
As corporate companies are resuming full operations for the year and inland schools prepare to open from Wednesday, electricity consumption will rise once more.
Last year was one of the worst years of load shedding with over 47 days of rolling power cuts.
Eskom said that some of its power stations were about 42-years-old this year and should not be expected to perform as it is supposed to.
Spokesperson, Sikonathi Manshantsha said that the power utility was conducting all required maintenance this year to meet the country’s demand. He added that this year could be particularly tricky.
“So the reality is that the supply constraints will still very much be with us during this year and there will at times be the need to implement load shedding,” Mantshantsha said.
He said that this maintenance was extremely important as it would ensure that the power stations could still operate for a further 20 years.
Sources: News365, MSN
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