No light at end of load shedding tunnel as Eskom announces stages for the weekend

There’s no light at the end of the load shedding tunnel for South Africans. Eskom on Friday announced that stage 5 blackouts will continue until at least 5am on Saturday morning whereafter stage 4 will hammer consumers until Sunday morning 5am.

Stage 3 blackouts are expected to continue throughout the rest of next week, the utility said in a statement. Eskom said in its statement: “We currently have 5 839MW on planned maintenance, while another 15 745MW of capacity is unavailable due to breakdowns.”

According to the app Eskom Se Push, South Africans have enjoyed a cumulative 72 days of electricity cuts this year. Presently we are on day 266 of 2022. That equals 27%, almost a third of the entire year that the country has had to contend with load shedding.

Eskom promised to update South Africans on any significant changes to its load shedding cuts.

It said: “While some generation units are anticipated to return to service, it is necessary to continue the load shedding to limit the usage of the emergency generation reserves.”

Higher levels may return

Eskom also warned that blackouts may return to higher levels of severity should diesel supply not be secured for some of its power stations.

“Eskom is currently experiencing constraints from its diesel suppliers that is affecting the availability of bulk diesel to the Ankerlig and Gourikwa Open Cycle Gas Turbines, which have a combined capacity of 2 000MW. Should this uncertainty of diesel supplies persist, higher stages of load shedding may be required,” it said.

Also Read: Load shedding: A step-by-step plan for ditching Eskom and going off grid

The utility further updated: “Since Thursday a generation unit each at Camden, Kriel, Majuba and Matla power stations were taken offline for repairs. A generating unit at Hendrina and two at Kusile power stations were returned to service.”

What South Africans really want to know, is when they would have electricity. Eskom Se Push publishes an up to the minute infographic of how likely blackouts are. The country has not managed to get out of the danger zone for weeks.

South Africa is now in its 15th year of load shedding.

The power utility apologised, again: “Eskom apologises for the continued and unfortunate load shedding, which is implemented only as a last resort in view of the shortage of generation capacity and the need to attend to breakdowns.”