Sunday, January 22nd, Eskom clarified a statement made by its chairman, Mpho Makwana, about the installation of perpetual load shedding for the next two years.
After Sunday’s media conference, the spokeswoman for Eskom, Sikonathi Mantshasha, stated that stories about permanent load shedding in South Africa were wrong.
“Eskom has considered implementing permanent load shedding at stages 2 and 3 to increase public predictability.” According to Daily Maverick, Mantshasha stated that this is not practicable as it would not guarantee that load shedding would remain at the reduced level.
According to an Eskom representative quoted by BusinessTech, headlines claiming the permanent implementation of Stages 2 and 3 load shedding are false.
Makwana stated unequivocally in the briefing that Eskom intended to “create some predictability by implementing permanent stage 2 or 3 load shedding for the next two years in order to provide sufficient space for maintenance while giving the nation a level of predictability or consistency.”
The comment can be heard at 7:47 in a live video of the media briefing on SABC News.
Later in the same briefing, the outgoing CEO of Eskom, Andre de Ruyter, stated that permanent load shedding at Stages 2 and 3 would not guarantee that Eskom could maintain load shedding at such levels, and that system instability would lead to load shedding at higher stages. However, the CEO did not clarify that prolonged load shedding was not a possibility; Mantshasha’s statement addressed this.
Despite the disclaimer, load shedding has been a daily occurrence in 2023 since the previous year.
»Eskom quickly reverses permanent load shedding despite daily power cuts in 2023«