By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
State owned power utility Eskom says that load shedding will be suspended on Christmas day (25 December) – but this is only possible as long as demand stays low, and load shedding may have to be implemented at short notice.
To this end, the group called on South Africans at large to use electricity sparingly and switch off unused electronics and conserve energy where possible.
Eskom said that load shedding will be suspended from 05h00 on Sunday, and will remain suspended until 05h00 on Monday, 26 December. Thereafter, stage 2 load shedding will be implemented before escalating to stage 3.
Saturday, 24 December
- Stage 3: until 00h00
Sunday, 25 December
- Stage 3: 00h00 to 05h00
- Suspended: 05h00 to 00h00
Monday, 26 December
- Suspended: 00h00 to 05h00
- Stage 2: 05h00 to 00h00
Tuesday, 27 December
- Stage 2: 00h00 to 16h00
- Stage 3: Until further notice
“The suspension of load shedding on Christmas day is only possible due to the lower demand for electricity. Eskom appeals to all electricity users to conserve as much electricity as possible during this period,” it said.
“The generation fleet remains unpredictable and vulnerable. Should there be multiple failures of generators, a higher stage of load shedding may need to be implemented at short notice.”
South Africa is likely to sit with prolonged levels of load shedding for the foreseeable future. Last Saturday (10 December) 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.