Eskom has moved to assure South Africans that there is no imminent collapse of the power grid after social media posts claimed that the country is facing a looming complete blackout.
“Eskom refutes these claims and would like to assure South Africans that there are measures in place to avoid the collapse of the power system. Load shedding is one of these mechanisms.
“The risk of a national blackout, while inherent to the operation of a large power system, has an extremely low likelihood of materialising given the implementation of a number of control measures, including load shedding.
“The grid is by no means at a higher or imminent risk of a collapse, and it would take an unforeseen and sudden sequence of events that results in a cascading collapse of the transmission or generation system, leading to a complete loss of supply across the country,” the power utility said.
It emphasised that there are “robust contingency plans in place to deal with such an eventuality”.
“At the Enlit Africa conference … interim group CEO Calib Cassim reiterated that there are several controls in place… [There are] staff at the system operator, who have the competence to manage the tight system.”
Recovery initiatives
“Eskom continues to drive generation recovery initiatives that are aimed at preventing the current performance from deteriorating in the short term, and improving the overall performance of the generation fleet in the long-term,” the power utility said.
A media briefing on the state of system is expected to be held on Thursday to “give an update of the power system and share the outlook for winter, including contingency plans to avoid higher stages of load shedding”.
