A general view shows trails of lights from passing vehicles in Braamfontein, Johannesburg, which is submerged in darkness due to load-shedding
If everything goes to plan, Eskom hopes to reduce load-shedding from the current stage five to stage four on Friday and stage three by Saturday, the power utility said on Thursday.
Eskom’s head of generation Thomas Conradie told a media briefing that this was due to several generating units which had broken down, coming back online, as well as anticipated low demand over the weekend.
The units set to return to service on Friday are Majuba in Mpumalanga and Lethabo in the Free State.
Eskom board member Mteto Nyati said the Koeberg and Kusile power stations were being given priority at the moment. Koeberg’s unit 1 is offline for planned maintenance while three units at Kusile are down due to forced outages. Eskom only expects to return the units to service approximately a year from now, Nyati said.
He stressed the need to ensure that Eskom had money for diesel to run its open-cycle gas turbines, telling journalists: “We cannot afford to be running out of funds for diesel during this period.”
Conradie said Eskom would continue to use diesel, but within means and at lower volumes.
Nyati said the search for a new Eskom chief executive officer to replace Andre de Ruyter, who is due to step down at the end of March after resigning late last year, was still underway. Proposed candidates would be identified in two weeks and would thereafter be shortlisted, he added.
Nyati said there would be no replacement for chief operating officer Jan Oberholzer who is retiring in April.
“Eskom never really needed a COO and especially now with the unbundling, going forward there will not be a COO. The board has decided on this,” he said.