The power grid remained constrained on Monday, Eskom said. Any extra load or faults in the system may require load shedding, the power utility’s media desk said in a statement.

“Eskom’s ambition is not to implement load shedding at any given day, but because we are operating an old and vulnerable power system, sometimes we do experience technical faults, and this increases the risk of load shedding.”

The capacity available to meet Monday evening’s demand was 31,663MW while demand was expected at 31,159MW.

Current planned maintenance was 4392MW and unplanned outages 7624 MW.

Last Monday, Eskom said unit six at its newly built Medupi power station in Limpopo produced power for the first time.

“The electricity flowing into the grid marks a new beginning,” Eskom chief executive Tshediso Matona said at the time.

“Within the next three months, South Africa will see Medupi unit six’s full potential of 794MW being fed into the South African national grid.”

This was the first of Medupi power station’s six units to be synchronised. Synchronisation involves the generator being connected to the grid so its power is aligned with all the other generators to deliver electricity. SAPA