Image: Mail and Guardian
By Mandisa Nduli, Editor
South African power utility Eskom says coal stocks have improved at a number of its power stations, as it carried out maintenance over the festive season.
However, the risk of rolling blackouts remains as the country’s power grid is still constrained.
“Eskom continues to have coal shortages, but there is an improvement in terms of where they are,” Eskom spokesperson Khulu Phasiwe, told fin24 on Thursday.
Further, he said the improvement of coal stocks was part of the reason there was no load shedding over the festive period.
In an interview with eNCA, the utility’s CEO Phakamani Hadebe said more power outages might be implemented in early January.
“As we work on the maintenance we hope the situation will be better, but after the 15th [of January] probably there might be stage one load shedding that might take place,” he said.
Stage one power outages can cut up to 1000MW from the national grid.
Last year, Eskom implemented nationwide power outages following reports that it had difficulties completing maintenance work at a number of its power plants on time.
