Photo by: Duane Daws
State-owned electricity producer Eskom has declared the fourth power emergency of its summer maintenance season and has warned that rotational load shedding is a strong possibility.
The emergency, which was attributed to losses associated with relentless rain in parts of South Africa, was declared from 6:00 on the morning of March 6.
Eskom's large customers will be expected to reduce their consumption by 10%, but the utility also requested residential and commercial customers to cut consumption in an effort to stabilise the network.
It also warned that load shedding was a "strong" possibility.
The emergency announced on November 19 endured until November 21, but was not accompanied by load shedding, while the two emergencies announced on February 20 and 21 were also not associated with rotational cuts and were lifted fairly quickly.
However, the utility warned that the situation was more critical on Thursday than had been the case during the previous emergencies and said it could be forced to resort to load shedding for the first time since the power crisis of 2008, during which mines were shut, factories reduced output and offices and households across the country were left without power for extended periods.
Should such a course of action be pursued, Eskom said it would use the published load shedding schedules which are available on its Website at http://loadshedding.eskom.co.za/ for its customers, while municipalities also had their own schedules that were align to the Eskom framework.
"Should the demand decrease over this period, load shedding will not be implemented," Eskom said in a statement, which also called on consumers to urgently switch off geysers, pool pumps and all non-essential appliances.