Pretoria - The power system will remain extremely constrained for the rest of the week, Eskom said on Monday.
“Any extra load or faults in the system may necessitate the need to go into load shedding,” the power utility said in its system status bulletin on Monday.
Load shedding is a painful yet necessary measure to protect the power system from a total collapse.
“It remains important for all customers in the commercial, industrial and residential sectors to maintain or achieve at least 10% electricity savings,” said Eskom.
Eskom is continuing to make progress with its programme of planned maintenance but the system remains tight. Capacity available depends on the number of machines released for planned outages.
“We urge all South Africans to partner with us to save 10% of their electricity usage throughout the day. This will make it significantly easier to manage the power system during this challenging time, while also enabling us to do planned maintenance to ensure the reliability of our plant.”
Eskom called on all South Africans to pull together over the next few months and use electricity sparingly.
Homeowners and businesses can save energy by following these four steps:
- switching off geysers and pool pumps;
- switching off non-essential lights;
- efficient use of air-conditioners by keeping the room temperature at 23⁰C; and
- responding to the alerts on television each evening. - SAnews.gov.za
