By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
State owned power utility Eskom has announced that it will suspend load shedding from 5 am on Thursday until further notice.
Eskom attributed the decision to suspend the power cuts to lower demand expected until the weekend.
The drop in demand is likely tied to the public holiday on Thursday (21 March), with many businesses likely to close or scale back operations on Friday.
South Africa marks Human Rights Day on Thursday, with many taking the opportunity to enjoy a long weekend by taking leave on Friday.
Given historical trends, load shedding is likely to return once demand picks up again in the new week. Eskom said it will issue a statement if anything changes.
The anticipated demand for this evening’s peak is 26,109MW, with unplanned outages at 14,335MW and planned maintenance at 6,073MW of generating capacity.
A total of 3,850MW of generating capacity is planned to return to service by Monday evening.
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.