Eskom acting boss 'confident' SA won’t experience grid collapse
Eskom acting group chief executive Callib Cassim says he is confident the country will not experience a total blackout.
Cassim addressed power and energy professionals from across the globe at the energy conference on Tuesday.
The three-day event is hosted by Enlit Africa at the Cape Town International Convention Centre.
The event comes just a day after EFF leader Julius Malema warned that South Africa could experience a total grid collapse within the next fortnight.
The country has been surviving with only a few hours of electricity a day due to Eskom's shortage of generation capacity.
On Monday, the embattled power utility warned that due to high electricity demand and the cold weather, power cuts will continue at rotational stage 6 and 4 load shedding until further notice.
Cassim said the country is nowhere near a total grid collapse.
"I have all the confidence in the staff at the system operator we will never get there. I don't lose sleep around blackouts as the acting CEO or when I was the CFO, I lose more sleep around, will we touch stage 8 because we need to manage that?
“But I have confidence, this team has been operating the system under stress for the last three years, even in the last week, there has been a number of times where it gets very close to getting to the highest stage.
“But the competence that they possess in conjunction with key generation people is critical, they are making decisions by the second and we must allow them to do that and have the confidence and support them.
“Personally, I am not losing sleep on a blackout, I am more stressed about going beyond stage 6," said Cassim.
ALSO READ
