–Edited by Bev Mortimer– Eskom refutes claims and notes with concern social media posts claims the country will soon experience a blackout or collapse of the national electricity grid.
This was said by Eskom in a Media release sent out this evening. In it Eskom assures South Africans measures in place to avoid the collapse of the power system. Load-shedding is one of these mechanisms.
“The risk of a national blackout, while inherent to the operation of a large power system, has an extremely low likelihood of materialising given the implementation of a number of control measures, including load-shedding,” Eskom says.
“The grid is by no means at a higher or imminent risk of a collapse and it would take an unforeseen and sudden sequence of events that results in a cascading collapse of the transmission or generation system, leading to a complete loss of supply across the country. ‘
Eskom says it has robust contingency plans in place to deal with such an eventuality.
At the Enlit Africa conference today, interim GCE Calib Cassim reiterated there are several controls in place and that he doesn’t lose sleep on the issue. “This is due to the confidence in the staff at the System Operator who have the competence to manage the tight system for the past three years,” Cassim said.
“Eskom continues to drive generation recovery initiatives which are aimed at preventing the current performance from deteriorating in the short-term, and improving the overall performance of the generation fleet in the long-term, Eskom further says.
Eskom also says: “A State of System’ media briefing is scheduled this Thursday to give an update of the power system and share the outlook for winter, including contingency plans to avoid higher stages of load-shedding.
St Francis Chronicle 