In preparation for winter, Eskom to reduce 'high levels' of planned maintenance
The power utility said this will significantly decrease the risk of load shedding due to units returning late to the grid.
FILE: Dan Marokane. Picture: Dan Marokane Facebook page.
JOHANNESBURG - In preparation for the winter season, Eskom will reduce "high levels" of planned maintenance of its power stations.
The power utility said this will significantly decrease the risk of load shedding due to units returning late to the grid.
Eskom’s top brass, along with the Electricity Minister, Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, held a media briefing in Pretoria on Tuesday to update the country on the latest power situation following the recent implementation of stage 2 load shedding.
Short-term pain for long-term gain has been the message from Eskom.
Over the past few months, the power utility has been taking a high number of units offline for planned maintenance.
Eskom CEO, Dan Marokane, said maintenance is already below the anticipated 5,000-megawatt level, however, the benefit of that is yet to be seen due to delays in returning some of the units to the grid.
“As we get into a phase of lower planned maintenance levels, the risks associated with outage reduces quite drastically. So our critical period is the transitioning from what was a high period of maintenance to getting back to normal operations, and it is this transience that has cost us some of the pain.”
Marokane said stage 2 load shedding remains in place until some units are brought back online.