Eskom has announced that load shedding will be pushed to stage 3 on Friday, and that rolling blackouts will be extended over the entire weekend.
Stage 3 load shedding will be implemented from 14h00 on Friday and will continue until 05h00 on Monday.
Thereafter, stage 2 load shedding will be implemented continuously for the rest of the week.
The escalation is due to the loss of an additional five generating units on Friday morning.
“The additional load shedding tonight is required to manage and recover the emergency generation reserves, which have been utilised extensively over the past five days. Eskom, therefore, urges all South Africans to continue using electricity sparingly,” it said.
Since this morning, three generating units at Tutuka Power Station as well as two Kusile Power Station generating units tripped, necessitating the escalation in the stage of load shedding. The delay in the return to service of Koeberg Unit 2 has exacerbated the capacity shortages.
During this weekend, critical planned maintenance at Hydro de Cahorra Bassa in Mozambique, Lethabo, Majuba, Matimba and Camden power stations will be carried out in preparation for the week ahead.
Eskom said it currently has 4,588MW on planned maintenance, while another 17,131MW of capacity is unavailable due to breakdowns.
Eskom will hold a media briefing on Monday to update the public on the state of the power system. Any further significant changes will be promptly communicated.
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.
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: Joburg has a plan to move away from Eskom and load shedding
