“The prospect of a blackout is virtually non-existent,” he told reporters in Johannesburg during a briefing on the state of the power system today.
He gave this assurance despite conceding that power plants were “ageing and volatile”, that cold weather had increased demand, and that maintenance would put strain on an already strained system.
Planned maintenance would take 5 500 MW out of the system this winter, more than three times the amount of previous winters.
There would be load shedding “here and there”, but efforts would be made to keep it to a minimum.
