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Johannesburg - The performance of SA's power system has
improved since Monday, electricity parastatal Eskom said on Thursday, in the
first of a regular weekly series of updates.
The updates, Eskom added, would build on the quarterly state
of the system briefings which it began in January last year.
"This is in line with Eskom's commitment to transparent
and regular communication on the power system, which is expected to be
constrained for at least the next two years.
"We have been saying since late 2009 that the system
would be tight in 2011 and that 2012 would be a particularly challenging
year."
Eskom said it continued to be on alert and the new weekly
bulletin was designed to keep all stakeholders up to date on developments in
the supply and demand of power in SA.
"The quarterly briefings will also continue, with the
first session for 2012 scheduled to take place later this month."
Eskom said that today, Thursday January 12, the capacity
available to meet this evening's peak demand was 34 618 Mega Watts (MW) while demand
was forecast at 31 168 MW.
Current planned maintenance stood at 4 461 MW. Unplanned
outages were seen at 3 678 MW.
Yesterday, Wednesday January 11, peak demand of 31 108 MW
was met by available capacity of 32 601 MW.
On Monday, January 10, peak demand of 30 282 MW had been met
by available capacity of 30 742 MW.
"Peak demand forecast for the rest of this week is
forecast at 31 303 MW on Friday, 29 762 MW on Saturday and 29 205 MW on
Sunday," Eskom noted.
During the course of Wednesday, supply from Cahora Bassa in
Mozambique (1 500 MW) had been lost for approximately two hours.
"Although supply was restored the system remains
constrained and customers are reminded to use electricity as efficiently as
possible.
"We urge all South Africans to partner with us to keep the lights on. If all our customers can save 10% off their electricity usage, this will make it significantly easier to manage the power system during this challenging time," Eskom said.
