Load shedding: Varying stages to continue until Sunday

As power utility Eskom still battles an unprecedented number of breakdowns in generating units, South African should get comfortable moving between various stages of load shedding.

The country is currently on stage 3 of rolling blackouts, which is set to continue until 16:00 on Thursday.

Thereafter, stage 4 will be implemented until 05:00 on Friday morning.

Load shedding is expected to be lowered to Stage 2 from 05:00 to 16:00 on Friday, provided there are no additional breakdowns over the weekend.

For now though, stages 2 and 1 load shedding will be implemented over the weekend.

“The emergency generation reserves are almost depleted, both the diesel and pumped storage dam levels.

“These, together with persistent high levels of breakdowns of generating units, are among the major contributors to the continuing generation capacity shortages,” said Eskom in a statement.

Since Tuesday evening, technical teams have returned to service a generating unit each at Duvha, Kendal and Medupi power stations.

“We currently have 5 683MW on planned maintenance, while another 16 585MW of capacity is
unavailable due to breakdowns.”

Compiled by Narissa Subramoney

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