Eskom says it has suspended rolling blackouts from 12 pm to 17:00.
It says this is because of improved generation capacity and adequate emergency reserves.
The power utility says stage two rolling blackouts will resume from 17:00 until 21:00 tonight.
The changes to the rolling blackouts come after the appointment of Dan Marokane as the Eskom CEO. The Public Enterprises Minister announced the appointment yesterday.
Independent energy expert Adil Nchabeleng Marokane says Marokane has a lot of work to do to turn around the power utility. This includes improving the performance of power stations and lowering rolling blackouts which Nchabeleng says have paralysed the economy.
“I think his starting point will be to make sure that he rallies up the troops, he gets support behind himself to place more attention in terms of fixing Eskom. Between now and March, it’s a long time and in South Africa, knowing the instability, anything can change. So, I think it’s a hope situation that when he comes in at that time they would have been able to already almost rescue the current situation.”
Meanwhile, labour unions have described the appointment of Dan Marokane as the Eskom CEO as a relief in light of the country’s worsening energy crisis.
Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan confirmed the appointment on Friday.
MArokane’s appointment comes as Eskom implements the worst rolling blackouts on record this year.
Trade union Solidarity’s Helgard Cronjé says the appointment of the Eskom head is long over-due.
“We are glad that the CEO has at last been appointed – it’s been too long. I guess it’s a good thing they appointed someone which Eskom experience. I think that people need to understand Eskom and its difficulties. They need [to have] the experience of working there in the past,” adds Cronjé.
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