Weekend reprieve as Eskom suspends rolling blackouts until Monday afternoon

Eskom has given South Africans some reprieve from load shedding going into the weekend.

The power utility announced that the rolling blackouts will be suspended starting at 10pm on Thursday evening. Stage 3 load shedding will start again at 4pm on Monday.

Stage 2 starts on Monday at 4pm

Eskom said the suspension of load shedding for more than three days is a result of the continued good generation fleet performance and the expected lower weekend demand.

“Breakdowns have been reduced to 12 925 MW, whilst planned maintenance is at 4 889 MW of generation capacity,” the power utility said.

“A further update will be provided on Sunday afternoon.”

Eskom said it will communicate should any significant changes occur.

ALSO READ: Kusile power station units return, good news for load shedding?

The announcement of the suspension of rolling blackouts for three days comes as Kusile units returned to service this week.

The power station’s Unit 1 returned to service this week, a year after it was taken offline.

Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa made the announcement on Monday.

The announcement came a month ahead of schedule, and Ramokgopa explained that the unit would add 800 MW of capacity to the grid.

Load shedding cost economy about R150 billion

Meanwhile, on Wednesday, South African Revenue Service (Sars) commissioner Edward Kieswetter estimated that the rolling blackouts may have cost the country’s economy as much as R150 billion in lost revenue.

Kieswetter said load shedding hampers economic growth and eats into productivity and company profits, which affects corporate tax collections.

“We estimated our energy supply risk over 2022/23 to be about R60 billion, but it could easily have been as high as R150 billion. We see that again this year—unquantifiable but material. If we could recover the revenue lost from load shedding this year, we would be in surplus, not lagging as we are year-to-date.”

ALSO READ: Kieswetter estimates load shedding cost economy about R150bn

Additional reporting by Faizel Patel