It’s been three weeks since we’ve heard the dreaded words “loadshedding to be implemented”, from Eskom, but can we expect the national power grid to make it to an even 30 days?

“Eskom has met the country’s electricity demand while operating its generation fleet in a sustainable manner for three weeks, resulting in no load shedding for 22 consecutive days,” the national power utility said this morning.

This is the longest period Eskom has managed to keep the lights on in South Africa this entire year.

Eskom said it doesn’t anticipate any power cuts for today and that the opening of Unit 6 at the Medupi power station yesterday will help keep it that way.

The end of winter should also offer some relief to the grid as South Africans use less high electricity-consuming appliances as the country warms up.

Eskom says that, should there be any faults in the system, it’s highly likely that we’ll have another round of dark days before the year is over.

[Image – CC 2.0 by lifeofpix]