Great news: Eskom halts load shedding

Eskom has suspended load shedding, with the state-owned entity seeing a recovery of generation capacity and the replenishment of sufficient emergency reserves

The power utility had implemented Stage 3 load shedding last Friday following troubles at the Kusile and Koeberg power stations and slippages in the return of units from planned maintenance.

Suspended

However, following the recovery of over 3,000MW of generation capacity and replenishment of sufficient emergency reserves in the past 44 hours, load shedding was suspended from 10:00 on Sunday.

It was previously scheduled to only end on Monday, 10 March at 05:00.

“Coal operations at Kusile Power Station are at optimal levels, with all units that were offline as of Friday now back in service. Progress on the recovery of Koeberg Unit 2 recovery well underway,” Eskom said in a X post.

Eskom reassured the public that Koeberg Unit 2 remains safe despite a trip to South Africa’s only nuclear power station.

It added that coal operations at the Kusile power station are at optimal levels, with all units that were offline as of friday now back in service.

The SOE added that maintenance outages aimed at preparing for winter and meeting regulatory and environmental licensing requirements continue, with the team looking to restore over 4 000MW by Monday.

Recovery plan

The group said that its Summer Outlook, published on 26 August 2024, remains unchanged, with its winter outlook set to be published later this month.

“We maintain our guidance that loadshedding is largely behind us due to structural improvements in the generation fleet.”

“While baseload capacity remains constrained, our generation recovery plan is addressing this challenge.”