By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Load shedding will be escalated to Stage 6 during the night, starting at 21:00 on Tuesday until 05:00 on Wednesday, Eskom said on Tuesday evening.
Stage 6 nightly load shedding will then be implemented from 16:00 – 05:00 until further notice, it added.
This comes after seven units tripped on Tuesday. Three are back online, but the return to service of another three units has been delayed.
“In addition, the return to service of three other units has been delayed. Unit 1 of Matla Power Station will be shut down tonight to repair a boiler tube leak.”
The pattern of stage 4 load shedding between 05h00 and 16h00, and then stage 6 between 16h00 and 05h00 will repeat until further notice, Eskom said.
“Eskom will promptly communicate a further update as soon as there are any significant changes,” it said.
South Africa is likely to sit with prolonged levels of load shedding for the foreseeable future. In December 2022, 1,000MW was removed from the grid through Koeberg unit 1 being taken offline, and approximately 3,000MW is offline from various breakdowns at Kusile and Medupi.
According to Eskom’s outlook for the next year, it needs to keep breakdowns below 13,000MW to stave off the worst of load shedding, but the utility has struggled to keep outages below 16,000MW – the worst-case scenario in its plans.
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.