By: Staff Reporter
Cape Town – Eskom has thanked South Africans for helping to avert load shedding last night.
’’Thank you for your support during the supply constraints; you enabled us to avoid load shedding last night,’’ it said in a statement on Friday.
’’Eskom wishes to thank the people of South Africa for responding positively to the call to reduce electricity consumption last night.
’’Soon after Eskom’s plea for the public to reduce the usage of electricity during the peak hours, demand dropped to manageable levels, enabling us to avoid the need to implement load shedding.
’’This, together with an extensive utilisation of emergency generation services, afforded Eskom the space to return to a single generating unit at Majuba Power Station during the night.
’’While the probability has been significantly reduced at this point as Eskom returns generating units to service from breakdown, we urge the public to continue using electricity sparingly.
’’Eskom will communicate promptly should there be any significant changes to the power system.’’
On Thursday, Eskom had warned that it might be forced to implement load shedding at short notice. The power utility said it had lost four generating units during the day – three of which tripped, while another was taken off-line for repairs.
