Eskom has announced a further suspension of rolling blackouts due to the return of unit three at the Kusile Power Station in Mpumalanga to the grid.
The power utility says there has also been a sustained improved generation as well as lower than anticipated demand for electricity.
Sunday, 01 October 2023:
Due to the return to service of Kusile 3, the sustained improved generation performance and the lower than anticipated demand for electricity, loadshedding will be suspended until 16:00 on Monday, when Stage 2 loadshedding will be…
— Eskom Hld SOC Ltd (@Eskom_SA) October 1, 2023
Rolling blackouts will now only resume on Monday from 16:00 where Stage 2 will be implemented.
Electricity Minister, Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, addressed the media in his weekly update in Pretoria.
We are pleased to announce that Kusile Unit 3 is returned to service two months ahead of schedule & will improve the available generation capacity by 800 MW’s once loaded to full capacity. This marks a significant milestone as part of the efforts to the resolve of Loadshedding pic.twitter.com/o3hlTgzcI0
— Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa (@Kgosientsho_R) October 1, 2023
Summer season
Earlier this week, Eskom expressed its confidence in the state of the electricity system as it gears up for the upcoming summer season.
In its summer outlook, Eskom has set a goal to keep rolling blackouts at a level below stage four during the summer months.
The key to achieving this objective, according to the utility, is to ensure that unplanned load loss remains under the threshold of 14 500 megawatts.
