By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
State owned power utility Eskom announced with “great regret” that it will be rolling out Stage 6 load shedding from noon on Friday.
“It is with great regret that due to the shortage of generating capacity and emergency reserves, Stage 6 load shedding will be implemented from 12:00 today until 05:00 on Monday,” it said in a brief update.
The escalation follows warnings all week that the grid is highly volatile and only being kept under control through lower demand and less maintenance.
Eskom has experienced a rise in breakdowns over the past few weeks, which forced the group to escalate to stage 4 on Wednesday.
The latest plant performance data compiled by independent energy analyst Pieter Jordaan showed that contrary to the political statements indicating improvements in Eskom’s generation capacity, the group’s Energy Availability Factor (EAF) has regressed from the much-celebrated 60% level reached a month ago.
Outages have also entrenched above 30% of capacity, indicating serious troubles for the country’s energy outlook.
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.