Still 10 days of darkness

Eskom yesterday said the full recovery of the power system would take about 10 days.

“The power system remains constrained with the risk of stage one load shedding remaining high for this evening [yesterday] due to a shortage of capacity from the effects of the recent industrial action,” Eskom said in a statement.

Eskom’s prognosis was that the power system would take up to 10 days to recover from the effects of the strike by trade unions over wages, once staff returned to work today.

Level one load shedding required 1000MW to be shed nationwide. Load shedding was conducted as a measure of last resort to protect the power system from a total collapse or blackout, Eskom said.

Customers should note that some municipalities may take longer to restore load once load shedding had been terminated. If customers experienced outages for longer periods than announced, they should contact their supplier (Eskom or the municipality), as this may be a localised power outage.

“We thank residents and businesses for using electricity sparingly during this period. Please switch off geysers during the day especially during peak periods [7am-10am and 6pm-9pm], as well as all non-essential lighting and electricity appliances to assist in reducing demand. Remember to treat all electrical points as live,” Eskom said.

Customers were advised to check load shedding schedules on the Eskom and municipal websites and plan on the assumption that load shedding would take place. – ANA