The lower stages of load shedding will be a welcome relief for South Africans. Photo: iStock
Eskom has reduced load shedding to stage 3 from 5am on Monday until 4pm.
Thereafter, stage 4 load shedding will be implemented until 5am on Tuesday.
The lower stages of load shedding will be a welcome relief for South Africans following the implementation of stage 6 last week.
Eskom spokesperson Daphne Mokwena said this pattern of stage 3 load shedding in the morning and stage 4 load shedding in the evening will be repeated daily until Friday at 4pm.
“Eskom will communicate should any significant changes occur. Unplanned outages are at 12 648MW and planned maintenance is at 6 814MW of generation capacity.”
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Meanwhile, Johannesburg’s City Power has apologised to residents east of the city as they entered a third day without electricity.
Various areas including Kensington, Houghton Estate and Yeoville were plunged into darkness on Saturday.
This after the Observatory Substation caught fire in the early hours of the morning.
City Power said the fire gutted the control room where all secondary plant infrastructure, including telecommunications cables were housed.
“The cleaning process in the tunnel has started to remove rubbles and damaged cables, following the fire at Observatory substation. Further testing is being conducted from the 88kv side.
“Meanwhile, another team is collecting the required material from the warehouse, this process will take approximately five hours and the team will start replacing all damaged cables. Protection is still testing the relays, and the outcome will guide if it needs replacement or repairs,” Mangena said
Mangena added that City Power successfully managed to restore the Johannesburg Water’s Yeoville reservoir supplying water to the surrounding areas, which was also affected by the fire.
“Due to the commencement of testing of high voltage equipment, the site access is strictly reserved for authorized construction personnel only. We are still on track to restore full power supply to all affected customers in the next 7 days,” Mangena said.
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