By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
State owned power utility Eskom will implement Stage 6 load shedding from 16:00 on Sunday afternoon, until 05:00 on Monday.
The power utility will then implement Stage 4 load shedding from 05:00 till 16:00 on Monday.
“This pattern of Stage 4 load shedding from 05:00 until 16:00 and Stage 6 load shedding from 16:00 to 05:00 will be repeated daily until further notice,” Eskom said in a statement.
Breakdowns are currently at 18,016MW, with 3,987MW out on planned maintenance.
During the past 24 hours, a generating unit has returned to service at the Kriel Power Station – however, over the same period, two other units at the station have been taken out of service.
A unit at Matla has also been taken offline, and there has been a delay in returning seven units at various other power stations, which are adding to capacity constraints, Eskom said.
Eskom said it would publish an update as soon as anything changes.
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.
Fears of a total grid collapse in South Africa have been making the rounds, however, energy experts believe that only a perfect storm could lead to a nationwide blackout.
Meanwhile a former senior manager at Eskom’s transmission department, Hein Vosloo, said that a complete collapse could only occur under unexpected circumstances.
Vosloo said that a grid collapse could only occur if Eskom lost several power lines at once or if all the local power stations went down simultaneously.
“That means the diesel power stations in the Cape fail, as well as the hydro supply from Cahora Bassa in Mozambique and both Koeberg units. The dams at our pump stations must be empty,” he said.
“If this perfect storm happens, we will have a blackout and repairing it [quickly] would be virtually impossible because we won’t have electricity to get the system up and running again. That can cause weeks of blackout.”