SA gets brief reprieve of Stage 1 load shedding on Sunday

Load shedding has been downgraded to Stage 1 on Monday, but only briefly as it is expected to ramp back up to Stage 3 on Sunday afternoon. 

The power utility issued an alert on Friday announcing that power cuts would be reduced from Stage 4 to Stage 3 over the weekend with Stage 1 load shedding forecasted for Sunday morning. 

At 4pm on Sunday, Stage 3 would kick in and continue until Monday morning at 5 am. Thereafter, the country would be at Stage 4. 

What is the load shedding schedule for the rest of the week? 

At the time of writing, the load shedding schedule for the rest of the week had not yet been shared by the power utility. Eskom did, however, promise in Friday’s statement that a further update will be published as soon as any significant changes occur.

The power utility chalked the circumstances up to the return to service of a generating unit each at Duvha, Kriel and Matla power stations.

“During the same period, a generating unit each at Camden and Kendal power stations were taken offline for repairs. The return to service of a generating unit each at Hendrina, Medupi and Tutuka, power stations are delayed. 

“The repairs to the damaged towers from Cahora Bassa in Mozambique is continuing and is anticipated to be completed by early next week,” said Eskom in a statement. 

As of Friday, breakdowns reduced generating capacity to 16 469MW while 4 652MW of generating capacity was out of service for planned maintenance.

WATCH: End load shedding by plugging dancing Kgosientsho Ramokgopa into grid