We will not risk total grid failure in order to avoid a few hours of load shedding — deputy president

Vice President Paul Mashatile has guaranteed that the South African government will do all possible to allow Eskom to boost its generation while without jeopardising the national power grid.

Mashatile was responding to parliamentary questions on Thursday, March 23, 2022, at a National Assembly Plenary meeting.

“I can assure you that everything has been done by Eskom and government together to ensure that we keep the lights on,” Mashatile said.

The vice president was replying to a question from Steve Swart of the African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP).

“Thank you, honourable Swart, for acknowledging that government is on the right track with interventions,” Mashatile responded.

“Our interventions are to ensure that we can reduce the challenges of load-shedding. We will do everything as government to ensure that there are no technical interventions that will result in us having the problem of load-shedding increasing.”

Swart expressed worries about whether an order was made to keep the lights on at any costs in response to the shutdown demands, which, if true, might put the national grid at risk of total darkness.

The major point posed by the ACDP member concerned the technological measures put in place to prevent load-shedding throughout the long weekend last week.

Swart’s inquiry, on the other hand, persisted and prompted fears about a grid collapse.

Mashatile avoided the technical matter in order to address the ACDP’s concerns.

Kgosientso Ramokgopa, South Africa’s newly appointed electricity minister, stated last week that he is confidence in Eskom’s capacity to increase power plant performance and reduce load-shedding.

The minister was replying to a query about what had changed since Eskom warned of heavy load-shedding this winter a month ago.

“I have engaged with the power station management and technical staff. The energy availability factor trendlines are up with an exponential improvement,” he said.

“I am not a typical politician with a suit having a general conversation. I am an engineer engaging in a robust technical discussion with other competent engineers.”

Relatively brief load-shedding relief

Throughout the weekend of Saturday, March 18, 2023, Eskom managed to cease load-shedding for the longest period since October 2022.

The last time South Africa went more than 24 hours without power outages was on October 29, 2022.

It had initially intended to stop rotating power cuts on Sunday for only 11 hours.

Nevertheless, Eskom delayed load-shedding from 05:00 on Sunday to 05:00 on Monday, resulting in a brief period of stage 1 on Monday morning.

Load-shedding was subsequently reinstated from 11:00 a.m. on Monday to 16:00 a.m. on Tuesday.

The 29-hour load-shedding respite was the longest since the beginning of the year, with prior reprieves lasting as little as 11 hours.