By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
State owned power utility Eskom says that it will ease load shedding this week due to a recovery in generation capacity.
Stage 5 load shedding will no longer be implemented, and stage 4 will now continue until further notice, it said.
Load shedding was previously expected to alternate between stage 4 and stage 5 load shedding in the daytime and evening peak, respectively.
However, as has been the case for years, the grid remains in a volatile and unpredictable state, so the load shedding stages and schedules can change at short notice.
Eskom will provide an update as soon as any significant changes occur.
South Africa has experienced the worst levels of load shedding on record. Concerns have been raised that the country is likely to struggle going into the winter months having already experienced record levels of outages since the start of the year – summer months, where demand is relatively lower.
The average stage of load shedding has also been much higher in 2023 compared to any other year, with South Africa mostly being at or above stage 4 since January.
Load shedding has cost companies millions of rands, Homeware and fashion retailer The Foschini Group (TFG) estimates that rampant load shedding reduced TFG Africa’s retail turnover by about R1 billion, following abnormal costs, lost trading hours and decreased footfall in its stores over the 2023 financial period.
In a trading update for the year ending 31 March 2023, TFG revealed that the ongoing energy crisis and elevated load shedding levels significantly impacted its operations.
Despite TFG previously reporting that 70% of its turnover in South Africa is protected from the impacts of load shedding due to the group’s investment in alternative power solutions, running independently from Eskom is still proving costly, the group said.
To date, the group says it has spent around R220 million in capital expenditure on backup solutions while incurring a further R65 million in unbudgeted direct costs for diesel, security and maintenance, added the group.
As a result, TFG estimates that the operational and financial impacts of load shedding have reduced TFG Africa’s retail turnover by approximately R1 billion in FY2023 – and by more than R250 million in the past two months alone.
Compounding the losses released was the decline in footfall and trading hours as a secondary effect of the power cuts.
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.