State-owned power utility Eskom lifted the power emergency at 21:00 on February 20, after industrial customers reduced their loads by 10% earlier in the day and commercial and residential customers responded with 200 MW of savings.

Eskom said the system remained constrained, but stable, allowing all industrial customers to return to full production.

CEO Brain Dames said the emergency was declared after the power system became severely constrained, owing to the loss of additional generating units from its power-station fleet, reduced imports and the extensive use of emergency reserves.

“We are doing everything possible to increase our reserve margin by ensuring that we have adequate emergency reserves and returning plant from planned and unplanned maintenance to limit any additional risks,” he said, adding that imports from Cahorra Bassa should also return to normal levels.

Dames stressed that the emergency helped protect the national electricity grid and prevented rotational load shedding.

“While there has been a recovery, the system remains under pressure, such that we could reintroduce the emergency should there be any material deterioration in the system.”

The February 20 declaration was the first of 2014, with the utility having made a similar intervention in November last year. That intervention led to an outcry from the mining and industrial sectors, which were already under strain as a result of rising power and other input costs, as well as industrial relations volatility that had resulted in production cuts.

Speaking at the Energy Indaba ahead of the latest emergency Energy Intensive Users Group programme director Shaun Nel said industrial customers could no longer be the only source of electricity saving. “The whole of South Africa will now have to contribute to keeping the lights on,” he said.

The utility had continually warned that the system would remain under strain until new capacity was introduced from the Medupi, Kusile and Ingula power projects.

The first 800 MW Medupi unit was scheduled to be synchronised to the grid in the second half of 2014.

But concerns had been raised that there could be yet more delays as the strike-prone site moves towards the demobilisation of a number of its workers.