Eskom has issued a load shedding alert, warning of a high risk of outages this weekend.

This follows more than 10 months of uninterrupted electricity supply.

The power utility Group Chief Executive, Dan Marokane, said in a statement on Friday that this is a potentially temporary setback.

“Load shedding is largely behind us due to the structural improvements in our generation fleet. However, over the past seven days, we have experienced several breakdowns that require extended repair times.

“This has necessitated the use of all our emergency reserves, which now need to be replenished. Consequently, we are closely monitoring the status of our current emergency reserves, and loadshedding up to Stage 4 may be implemented over the weekend.”

He added that Eskom will issue further updates in due course.

Last month, Eskom said the focused execution of the Generation Recovery Plan continues to deliver the suspension of load shedding for 303 consecutive days since March 26 last year.

“A further substantial milestone of 300 days without load shedding was reached on Tuesday, January 21 and 10 months without load shedding will be achieved on Sunday January 26, further demonstrating the progress in Eskom’s turnaround strategy.”

“Year-to-date diesel savings (on a year-on-year basis) are currently at R16.40 billion, which is about 62.4% less than the R26.27 billion spent during the same period last year.”

It furthermore said, last August, Eskom shared its summer outlook for the period from September 1, 2024, to March 31, 2025, predicting a likely scenario of a load-shedding-free summer due to structural generation improvements.

Also read: Young Pretoria man remembered for his smile and vibrant spirit

Do you have more information about the story?

Please send us an email to bennittb@rekord.co.za or phone us on 083 625 4114.

For free breaking and community news, visit Rekord’s websites: Rekord East

For more news and interesting articles, like Rekord on Facebook, follow us on Twitter or Instagram