South Africa’s power system would be extremely tight during Monday’s evening peak with demand – forecast at 35 224 MW – exceeding the expected available capacity, including opencycle gas turbines, of 35 191 MW, State-owned power utility Eskom said in its latest system status bulletin.

The system was also expected to remain tight over the evening peaks for the rest of the week, and would be constrained for the foreseeable future, Eskom reiterated.

“Eskom calls on all consumers to pull together to help beat the peak over the next few months by using electricity sparingly, particularly from 17:00 to 21:00. We request all electricity customers to save at least 10% of their electricity usage and sustain these savings,” the power utility said.

Peak demand for the rest of this week was forecast at 34 824 MW on Tuesday, 34 768 MW on Wednesday, 34 896 MW on Thursday, 33 274 MW on Friday, 32 962 MW on Saturday and 32 732 MW on Sunday.