Supply from renewables played a big role in there not being loadshedding on Christmas Day (and a worse stage of this on January 1). Solar (from PV and CSP) peaked at around 2 400MW at midday on December 25. Moneyweb Eskom
Contrary to what many assume, Eskom didn’t burn a single litre of diesel on Christmas Day to avoid load shedding. In an announcement on December 24, the utility said that the “suspension of load shedding [was] only possible due to the lower demand for electricity”. This is only half of the equation. It is true that actual demand was about 1 500MW lower than on Christmas Eve. In fact, demand was a full 4 000MW lower than the previous Sunday – equivalent to Stage 4 load shedding.
One could easily theorise that political pressure – whether implicit or explicit – resulted in this decision. The consequences are plain to see with even maximum use of its pumped storage schemes on Boxing Day not enough to stave off load shedding. Things got worse as the week progressed, with higher stages of load shedding and near-constant use of its open cycle gas turbines for more than 48 hours from the morning of December 27.
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