Eskom has suspended load shedding as of 6 am today. In a brief announcement, the power utility indicated that the suspension of planned power cuts was attributed to the sufficient replenishment of emergency reserves. 

SUSPENDED 

In the alert on X, Eskom said: "Due to the sufficient replenishment of emergency reserves, loadshedding was suspended today at 6:00 in the morning. Eskom will provide updates if any significant changes occur.' Yesterday, Eskom spokesperson Daphney Mokwena said they were on track to suspend loadshedding today. "We went into loadshedding because we wanted to recover emergency reserves," Mokoena said. On Friday, the power utility announced that loadshedding was back after ten months of no power cuts. Eskom CEO Dan Marokane said at the time that in the past week, they have experienced several breakdowns that require extended repair times. Stage 3 loadshedding was implemented on Friday. 

THE RETURN OF LOAD SHEDDING

On Friday, Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa briefed the media alongside Eskom executives and said the planned power cuts are a result of units at some power stations going offline, starting with the best-performing ones, Matimba and Lethabo at the beginning of the week. He also asserted that the reintroduction of loadshedding was a temporary setback after having marked 300 days without the planned power cuts. "We had a situation at two of our best-performing power stations, Matimba and Lethabo, where we had a number of units failing at the beginning of the week. So, that's the second matrix in the perfect storm, and the third one was that there were other units that delayed in coming back, so as a result of that, that meant that for most of the week, we were burning diesel. He said repairs need to take place because Eskom has exhausted its reserves. Eskom said that they will provide further updates if there are any changes.