Johannesburg - The Minister of Electricity, Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, has committed to ending load shedding by the end of 2024.
This comes after he announced a slight improvement to the country’s energy output following the return to maintenance of some generating capacity at the Kusile Power Station.
This week, the country was subjected to Stage 6 power cuts in some (areas) due to the failure of generating units.
Yesterday, Ramokgopa announced the return of a generating unit at Kusile Power Station, reducing load shedding by one stage.
The country was pleased with some of the improvements to its ailing electricity problem, Ramokgopa told the weekly media briefing on the Energy Action Plan.
“We are pleased to announce that Unit 4 of Kusile Power Station, which was put on planned maintenance, has been brought back online this morning. This milestone means generating capacity will be ramped up by 800MW into the grid, resulting in the reduction of one stage of load shedding,” he said.
The minister said the country was getting closer to ending load shedding.
“We have committed ourselves that by the end of 2024 we want to restore normality at Kusile Power Station … this means our emissions parameters at Kusile, which is still a construction site. We have about three units that were commissioned and were removed from generating capacity,” he said.
The minister’s address came just as Eskom announced that it would implement Stage 2 load shedding from 4pm yesterday until the same time today.
After that, load shedding would increase to Stage 4 until 5am tomorrow, Eskom said. The power utility had previously planned to implement Stage 3 yesterday afternoon.
“Due to further improvement in generation capacity, Stage 2 load shedding (previously communicated as Stage 3 load shedding) will be implemented from 4pm today until 4pm on Monday,” Eskom said.
“Thereafter, Stage 4 load shedding will be implemented from 4pm on Monday until 5am on Tuesday, followed by Stage 2 load shedding from 5am until 4pm.”
The Star