JOHANNESBURG, Jan 22 (Reuters) – A call to all South Africans: be careful with electrical appliances after 4pm, think twice if you really need to boil that much water for that tea, and don’t even think about turning on your air conditioning. after dark.
These were some of the pleas the outgoing chief executive of state power company Eskom made to long-suffering consumers in Africa’s most industrialized nation on Sunday, assuring them that recent maintenance work would alleviate some of the harshest blackouts to hit. remember.
But outgoing chief executive Andre De Ruyter also reaffirmed that the power outages would continue for at least two more years.
Earlier this month, homes were without power for at least six hours a day, sometimes up to 10 hours, freezers thawed and businesses were forced to start diesel generators.
The South Africans were prepared for the worst, with the risk of “stage 8 load shedding”, more than half a day without power.
“That possibility is receding, which is comforting and positive,” De Ruyter said at a virtual press conference on Sunday. The current schedule was for lower “stages” of blackouts that equate to roughly less than four hours per day.
But he added that there was always an “inherent risk” that it could get worse if more outages occurred during peak demand.
“We really urge South Africans to plan (nighttime) consumption in such a way that… we have reduced demand,” he said. “Turn off air conditioners, only boil the water you need, don’t fill the kettle. These small steps will really make a difference.”
Creaky coal-fired power stations, corruption in coal supply contracts, criminal sabotage and a failure to relax regulation to allow private providers to quickly bring in renewable energy have left South Africa in deep energy deficit.
Voters may well punish the ruling African National Congress (ANC) in next year’s national elections.
Eskom’s chief operating officer, Jan Oberholzer, said that by the end of March, the company should be able to bring 1,862 megawatts back online and that it would focus on keeping its six main power plants running smoothly.
“We remain very aware of how our current poor performance is affecting the country,” he said. “We are working tirelessly to address this.”
Reporting by Tim Cocks Editing by Tomasz Janowski
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