This follows reports that it has ramped up its use of diesel to keep the lights on. Eskom has not imposed rolling blackouts for almost a month. It says it has sufficient generation capacity and emergency reserves to meet demand.

The power utility’s head of generation Bheki Nxumalo briefed the media at Megawatt Park in Johannesburg yesterday on the status of the grid ahead of winter.

“Actually, the way we are burning diesel now because we use the reference of winter as well and a budget for this year is you look at the budget for this month in particular, we are almost like 40% below that and that compared to last year we burned about R3 billion for the month of April and this year we are at about R1,4 billion, so it shows that actually we are burning less.”

--SABC--