Weekend load shedding ramped up as three generating units go down

Following hot on the heels of the welcome reprieve from load shedding on Human Rights Day, Eskom announced on Friday afternoon that the power utility will ramp up load shedding this weekend.

Stages will shift between Stage 1 and Stage 3 due to the need to replenish the emergency reserves in preparation for the week ahead…as well as the loss of three generating units over the last 24 hours,

Stage 2 will be implemented from until 8am tonight after which Stage 3 will kick in until 5am on Saturday morning.

On Saturday, Stage 2 load shedding will be in place until 8pm and thereafter Stage 3 resumes again until 5am on Sunday.

Eskom said it will closely monitor the power system and provide an update on Sunday afternoon

Weekend load shedding schedule

Friday, 22 March

• Stage 2: 4pm to 8pm
• Stage 3: 8pm to 12am

Saturday, 23 March

• Stage 3: 12am to 5am
• Stage 2: 5am to 8pm
• Stage 3: 8pm to 12am

Sunday, 24 March

• Stage 3: 12am to 5am
• Stage 1: 5am to 4pm
• Stage (to be announced): 4pm to 12am

Unplanned outages account for 15,409MW of generating capacity, while the capacity out of service for
planned maintenance is 6,261MW.

A total of 3,570MW of generating capacity is anticipated to return to service by Monday.

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Load shedding schedules for major metros  

Residents of major metros, can find there schedules here:

• City of Johannesburg
• City of Ekurhuleni 
• City of Tshwane 
• City of Cape Town (PDF)
• Nelson Mandela Bay
• eThekwini
• Manguang
• Buffalo City

For access to other load shedding schedules, Eskom has made them available on loadshedding.eskom.co.za.

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