Eskom has announced that load shedding will continue at stage 5 until Monday morning (05h00) due to the breakdown of generating units overnight.
The power utility said that the breakdown of five generating units over Friday night (16 September), with a combined capacity of 2,400 MW had necessitated the escalation of load shedding.
Load shedding was originally meant to be at stage 4 until Sunday (18 September) at 05h00 and stage 3 onwards until 05h00 on Monday, but this has subsequently changed.
A unit each at Kusile, Arnot and Camden, as well as two units at Duvha Power Station tripped, said Eskom.
“While some generation units are anticipated to return to service, it is necessary to escalate the load shedding to stop the use of the emergency generation reserves and begin the replenishment thereof ahead of the week.”
The emergency generation reserves have been depleted by extensive utilisation to limit the amount of load shedding over the past two weeks, added the national power utility.
Eskom said that it currently has 7,210MW on planned maintenance, while another 16,597MW of capacity is unavailable due to breakdowns.
Earlier this week, Eskom’s chief operating officer Jan Oberholzer said that the power grid is extremely vulnerable to breakdowns and that any load shedding schedules are subject to change at short notice.
Eskom said that it will, through a media briefing on Sunday (18 September), provide the outlook of load shedding for the week ahead.
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.
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