By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Due to a shortage of generating capacity, Stage 3 load shedding started from 05:00 on Saturday until further notice, power utility Eskom said.
Load shedding was supposed to be suspended from 05:00 to 16:00 on Saturday, but this is no longer the case.
A further update will be provided in the afternoon, it said.
The utility had initially planned on suspending load shedding during the day on Saturday and Sunday, while reducing evening load shedding to stage 2.
Near-permanent load shedding has been in effect for almost a whole year, with September marking the anniversary of South Africa’s descent into darkness.
While government officials and some energy experts are talking up the easing of load shedding going into the later parts of the year, rolling outages are likely to remain a fixture of daily life for the foreseeable future.
The blackouts have become so intense and so frequent that the energy sector has had to make provision for load shedding to get worse or even go beyond what is currently planned for.
To this end, energy regulator Nersa on Friday published new load shedding stages for public comment.
The proposed stages now go up to stage 16 and appear to alter the way in which the stages are determined, now basing the total megawatts removed on the demand profile at the time rather than the available load.
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.