Electricity Minister, Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, says the sudden heightened load shedding is a result of Eskom ramping up planned maintenance.
Ramokgopa has been briefing the media on the state of the grid.
Yesterday, Eskom implemented stage 6 load shedding.
He says high load shedding stages are the price they pay for being meticulous and insists that this strategy will eventually lead to improved grid performance.
Ramokgopa says, “It’s important that we do the right thing, that we’re able to improve the health and the performance of these units, we need to invest in them. There’s a short-term pain and long-term gain, so we accepted that. ”
“During that period of November, we had that cluster of units failing and as a result of that cluster of units failing, because we’ve undermined the buffer that we would ordinarily have as a result of heightened levels of maintenance, and that’s why we had reached stage six, even at that time. But what we know, we know that once these units come back from planned maintenance, they’re healthier, they remain on load most of the time,” he adds.
VIDEO: Ramokgopa briefs media on performance of the electricity grid:
