Eskom confirms stage one load shedding

eThekwini Municipality has been advised by the power utility, Eskom that the country is currently in load shedding stage one due to high demand. The load shedding stage one status will be in place until further notice.

eThekwini load shedding schedules are drawn up in accordance with the national guideline document (NRS 048-9) with specific consideration to technical constraints, practicality and sensitivity to local economic impact. The schedule comprises of stage one, stage two and stage three emergencies.

Download the schedule here

Stage one is largely residential and commercial load, stage two includes stage one and industrial load, and stage three includes the entire area of Durban with the exclusion of strategic national resources.

All affected blocks are scheduled for a two-hour outage, with an additional half hour contingency to cater for switching on. Customers are only scheduled to go off once a day under stages one and two, and twice daily should a stage three emergency be declared.

“Every effort will be made to follow the schedule but it must be recognised that we may incur technical difficulties in restoring the load and should a customer remain off for a substantial amount of time after the block has been scheduled to be restored, then that incident must be treated as a fault and reported accordingly,” said eThekwini Municipality’s communications head, Tozi Mthethwa.

“We continue to urge residents and businesses to implement electricity-saving measures at all times to help reduce constraints on the power system. The municipality will provide regular updates on the status of the power system through all the media platforms.”

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If you are experiencing a power outage, either outside your schedule time or when load shedding is not active, then it is a result of a fault on the network and not because of load shedding. Please report your outage to the electricity call centre on 080-131-31111.

During load-shedding, customers are urged to switch off appliances to prevent overload trips which may result in extended outages. Switching off sensitive electrical appliances before power is restored also prevents the risk of voltage spikes and subsequent damage to equipment when power returns.