Efforts are being made to mitigate the severity of load shedding, as Eskom now implements lower levels of power cuts, South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa assured the nation during his speech at the Reconciliation Day event in Limpopo on Saturday.
The president said the government had taken "far-reaching measures" to tackle the energy crisis.
"We have taken far-reaching measures to deal with the electricity crisis," Ramaphosa said. "These range from removing the licensing threshold to enable private investment in energy generation, to improving the performance of Eskom power stations, to encouraging and enabling households and businesses to invest in rooftop solar."
Although these measures "are seeing results" as the intensity of load shedding has consistently decreased over the past few months, Ramaphosa, however, stated the necessity of broadening intervention efforts in order to ultimately eliminate load shedding.
"We need to accelerate and expand our efforts even further, not only to overcome the immediate crisis, but to ensure that we never face such a shortfall again," the president emphasized.
In late August, Ramaphosa underlined that the energy crisis would be resolved by 2024, and current developments show that the energy situation in the country is improving.
Thus, this week, state-owned utility company Eskom announced that South Africa had suspended electricity blackouts "until further notice" due to "further improvement in available generating capacity."
Moreover, recently the government has declared that South Africa intends to incorporate an additional 2,500 megawatts of new nuclear power generation to address the country's electricity blackouts.
In addition, in November, the nation expedited its intentions to develop three gigawatts of gas-fired power generation, as stated by the country's Electricity Minister, Kgosientsho Ramokgopa.
Speaking of longer-term strategic solutions to the crisis, last Sunday South Africa's Cabinet approved an updated Integrated Resource Plan, which outlines plans for the growth of power supply until 2050.