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Eskom’s Kusile Power Station in Mpumalanga.
The cost of keeping the lights on for Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini’s memorial service on Thursday was reportedly more than 20 million rand.
On Thursday morning, Eskom announced that there would be no load shedding between 10:00 and 14:00, during the memorial service.
“This extraordinary measure was implemented to allow the nation to witness a landmark and historic event at this difficult time in the life of the Zulu nation. Then, load shedding will be implemented and will continue as previously communicated,” Eskom said in Thursday’s release.
Zwelithini, who had diabetes, died of Covid-19-related complications last week, after a long hospital stay.
According to a Times LIVE report, the utility had to supplement the electricity supply by burning diesel, using nine open cycle gas turbines (OCGT) to avoid load shedding.
It reportedly costs around R500,000 an hour for each OCGT to produce 150MW of power.
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