Power utlity Eskom has announced that stage 2 load shedding will be implemented on Tuesday, and will run all week.
Stage 2 load shedding will be implemented from 16h00 until 22h00 on Tuesday night.
Thereafter load shedding will continue at stage 2, daily, from 05h00 to 22h00 until Saturday night.
“The load shedding has been caused by a shortage of generation capacity owing to breakdowns and delays in returning some generating units to service,” Eskom said.
The breakdown of a generation unit at Arnot, Duvha, Kendal, Medupi and Tutuka power stations, as well as the delays in returning to service a unit to service at Hendrina Power Station, have exacerbated the capacity constraints.
On Saturday morning, 3 September 2022, Unit 2 of the Koeberg Nuclear Power Station tripped from full power during the routine testing of the control rod system. The process to return the unit to service is underway, the power utility said.
Eskom currently has 4,588MW on planned maintenance, while another 16,142MW of capacity is unavailable due to breakdowns.
The group recently published its load shedding outlook for the rest of the year, noting that it has to keep unplanned outages below 13,000MW to minimise rolling blackouts.
In a more load shedding-heavy scenario, if outages remain above 14,500MW, stage 2 load shedding will be frequent for the foreseeable future. If the power utility is unable to keep outages under 16,000MW, load shedding at higher stages becomes the standard.
Eskom’s load shedding outlook for the rest of the year
Schedules
For people living in the major metros, load shedding schedules are available here:
For access to other load shedding schedules, Eskom has made them available on loadshedding.eskom.co.za.
Smartphone users can also download the app EskomSePush to receive push notifications when load shedding is implemented, as well as the times the area you are in will be off.
Read: South Africa’s GDP shrinks as load shedding continues to drain the economy
