Maintenance season: Here’s what to expect from load shedding next week

SA will battle stage 4 rolling blackouts into the new week, as Eskom continues to focus on maintenance.

The power utility announced its load shedding schedule for the next few days on Sunday: a mixture of stage 2,3 and 4 power cuts.

“As planned maintenance remains to be a focus area, stage 4 power cuts will be implemented from 16:00 today [Sunday] until 05:00 on Monday. This will be followed by stage 3 load shedding from 05:00 until 16:00 on Monday”.

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It said the pattern would be repeated throughout the week, with an update expected around Wednesday.

Take a look at the full schedule for Sunday to Wednesday below.

Could load shedding get worse?

SA has been fighting higher stages of load shedding recently after Eskom doubled down on its maintenance efforts.

Speaking after the country was thrown into stage 6 power cuts, electricity minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa said the power utility was not “sticking to its planned maintenance schedule”.

“We are going to stick to planned and philosophy maintenance. We do accept that in the short-term its going to result in the possibility of intensified load shedding. That’s because ramped-up planned and philosophy maintenance is accompanied by an unplanned capacity loss factor” said Ramokgopa.

Deputy President Paul Mashatile told the Parliamentary Press Gallery Association on Thursday he is “confident” load shedding will be a thing of the past in 2024.

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“I have been very worried about load shedding. We are working closely with the Minister of Electricity, Kgosientsho Ramokgopa. We want to put it behind us next year. We are going to push… but not push these power stations to a point of total breakdown.

“We are allowing minister Ramokgopa to do a lot of maintenance. So, if you see a bit of spike at the moment, they are doing intensive maintenance. They have taken a lot of them for maintenance. When they come back online, then you will see reduced load shedding,” SABC News reported him as saying.