Eskom Announces Plan to End Proactive Power Cuts in Key Areas

South Africa's state-owned power utility, Eskom, has unveiled a strategy to stop "load reduction" in certain regions. This practice involves proactively cutting electricity to prevent network overloads and damage during peak times. The plan targets areas with high illegal electricity connections and infrastructure strain. Eskom stated that replacing overloaded transformers and addressing network overloading will make these controlled outages unnecessary. The utility will now focus on repairing and upgrading local electricity infrastructure. This shift means residents in these areas should experience fewer unplanned blackouts caused by equipment failures. Eskom emphasized that this change applies only to load reduction, not to "load shedding." Load shedding, the nationwide rolling blackouts implemented when power demand exceeds supply, will continue for the foreseeable future.