But on Friday, De Ruyter said the system has improved, making it possible to lift load-shedding a bit earlier than scheduled.

“I think we are in a much better place than we were when we took the decision to implement stage 2 load-shedding. We are currently reviewing our status when it comes to potentially lifting load-shedding.

“We will be monitoring the situation during the day and we will see how stable the system is and whether the risk is reduced to the extent that we can lift load-shedding. We will not unduly delay the lifting of load-shedding, but we have to take a prudent decision that we can in fact lift load-shedding without introducing a system risk,” said De Ruyter.

COO Jan Oberholzer said a decision will be made on Friday afternoon.

“We will have a look at 5 o’clock this afternoon and then we will make a decision, but I need to make it clear that although the system has improved very positively, it is important to note that the non-commercial unit at Kusile unit 4 is doing really well, but this is a commercial unit we are doing testing at and something might happen.

“So, we will take the whole system performance into consideration and we will communicate after 05 o’clock this evening on the outlook of the system,” said Oberholzer.

Jacaranda News