By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
State owned power utility Eskom says that load shedding will be pushed higher on Tuesday, 21 November, due to the imminent forced shutdown of two generating units.
The utility was supposed to implement stage 1 of rolling blackouts during the day.
Eskom Crisis Communications Manager Menzi Mngomezulu says load shedding had to be ramped up due to the imminent forced shutdown of two generating units.
“Stage 3 load shedding will be implemented from 4pm until 5am on Wednesday, followed by stage 2 load shedding until 4pm.
“This pattern of implementing stage 2 load shedding in the morning and stage 3 load shedding in the evening will be repeated daily until further notice.”
The escalation in load shedding comes amid warnings from analysts as well as government officials that the grid remains unstable.
Electricity minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa said on Sunday that power cuts had to be ramped up this week to replenish emergency reserves after Eskom lost a “cluster” of units from different power stations across the country.
This amounted to over 2,700 megawatts (MW), shy of three stages of load shedding.
“If we had not experienced that, of course, you would not be seeing the kind of intensity of load shedding that we are experiencing,” he said.
Independent energy analyst Pieter Jordaan warned that Eskom’s unplanned outages had entrenched above 30% in recent weeks, meaning any failures – or increased demand – would result in an escalation of load shedding.
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.