Just as South Africans felt a bit of relief, power utility Eskom announces it will be implementing Stage 6 load shedding from 8pm on Tuesday.
This comes after Eskom announced on Sunday that it will be moving between Stage 3 and Stage 4 load shedding for the rest of the week after South Africans were plunged into darkness when Stage 6 load shedding was announced on Friday.
Eskom spokesperson, Daphne Mokwena, said in order to replenish its emergency reserves, Stage 4 load shedding will continue until 8pm, and then Stage 6 load shedding will be implemented until 5am on Wednesday, November 29.
From 5am on Wednesday, Stage 4 load shedding will be implemented until 8pm.
“The pattern of implementing Stage 4 from 5am until 8pm and Stage 6 from 8pm until 5am will be repeated daily until Saturday morning. Unplanned outages increased by 401 MW to 15,825 MW, while planned maintenance increased by 555 MW to 6,835 MW of generation capacity in the past 24 hours,” Mokwena said.
She said 1,300 MW of generation capacity was returned to service in the last 24 hours.
Any changes to the power system will be communicated should they be required, Mokwena added.
Electricity Minister, Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, during a media briefing on Sunday, said there would be no load shedding during the day on Saturday and Sunday, but lower stages would be implemented during the evening.
“There has been significant improvement in generation capacity since Friday, when Stage 6 load shedding was implemented.
“We have made progress as a result of the intensification of load shedding,” he said.
robin.francke@inl.co.za
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