Eskom moves to stage 3 load shedding

Load shedding will be reduced to stage 3 from 21:00 tonight until 05:00 on Friday.

“Thereafter stage 2 will be implemented until 05:00 on Monday, as previously communicated,” South Africa’s embattled power utility, Eskom, said in a statement on Thursday.

The parastatal has reported some recovery in generation capacity over the past 24 hours.

“Eskom appeals to all South Africans to continue helping us limit the impact of load shedding by reducing the usage of electricity and switching off all non-essential items,” Eskom further stated.

The energy provider said that the emergency generation reserves have sufficiently improved to permit a reduction in the stage of load shedding.

A generation unit each at Matla, Medupi, Kusile and Camden power stations have returned to service while a unit each at Matla, Lethabo and Arnot power stations have been taken offline for repairs during the same period.

Two other units are expected to return to service today while another five generation units are expected to be back in service by Monday afternoon.

Total breakdowns amount to 13 942MW while planned maintenance is 7 136MW of capacity.

“Eskom would like to apologise for the implementation of load shedding, and will continuously
review the situation and act appropriately as circumstances change.

“We will communicate should there be any significant changes to the power system,” the power giant’s statement concluded.

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