Former head of Eskom in the Western Cape, Alwie Lester, says he does not believe that a total collapse of South Africa’s energy grid is imminent.
He says he does however believe that Eskom will implement higher stages of load shedding in the coming months.
Lester was speaking during Western Cape Premier Alan Winde’s weekly Energy Digicon.
“If the energy availability does not improve in the next few months, then we will continue to go into deeper stages of load shedding and I know that even at stage six, it’s quite unbearable. But I think if it doesn’t improve, we should be preparing ourselves for stage eight etc as winter hits us. So, no I don’t see an imminent grid collapse, but I do see further stages of loadshedding being implemented.”
Meanwhile, Eskom’s group executive for transmission Segomoco Scheppers says that the nation must brace itself for a difficult winter and that continued blackouts will be with us until August.
Scheppers was speaking earlier this morning at the power utility’s media briefing:
