South Africans can, for the most part, expect to keep their lights and heaters on during this year’s winter as Eskom doesn’t anticipate any loadshedding to happen.

Eskom hasn’t implemented any loadshedding since 2015, when there were frequents rounds of it through out the year.

The last time Eskom officially loadshedded was in August 2015. By winter 2016, the country hadn’t had loadshedding since.

Where there have been power cuts, the main causes have been cable theft, the break down of systems and weather, all of which were not intended.

When asked if power cuts would be making a return this year, Eskom told htxt.africa that it doesn’t anticipate any.

“This is mainly due to the turnaround in Eskom’s operational performance as a result of a focused plant maintenance programme as well as the remarkable progress of Eskom’s capacity expansion programme which has seen new units steadily coming online from the Medupi, Kusile and Ingula projects,” the power utility said.

Eskom said it currently has excess capacity of about 4000 MW, excluding an operating margin.

[Image – CC by 2.0/Lauren Rushing]