By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Eskom has announced that due to “sustained adequate emergency reserves to manage the evening peak and electricity demand,” Stage 2 load shedding will continue from Tuesday until further notice.
“Stage 3 load shedding will not be implemented at 16:00 as previously communicated. Eskom will communicate should any significant changes occur,” the utility said.
This is an easing of outages from the previous rotation of stage 2 during the day and stage 3 in the evenings.
Public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan says that unless new capacity is added to the national grid, South Africans should expect load shedding to continue.
This is despite various strategies power utility Eskom and the various departments have implemented to mitigate the outages and promises from president Cyril Ramaphosa and other politicians that the end of load shedding is in sight.
Responding to a written parliamentary Q&A, Gordhan said that to end load shedding, Eskom needs to add more megawatts to the entire system – something which is constrained by infrastructure, like grid access and transmission lines.
Eskom has implemented several other strategies to mitigate the outages, the minister noted, such as a Standard Offer Program to purchase excess power from private generators and from neighbouring countries.
This programme is fully subscribed for the 1000MW, he said, and consideration is being given to extending the capacity and duration of the programme to take advantage of “additional opportunities”.
“Furthermore, an Eskom Emergency Generation Programme has been implemented to procure emergency power when the grid is under significant strain. To date, 60 MW has been signed on to the programme and is available to the grid,” he said.
A further 150 MW was expected to be online from the Risk Mitigation Independent Power Producer programme by December 2023.
Gordhan noted that between 2018-2023, approximately 2,411 MW of new capacity was brought online via the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy’s (DMRE) Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Programme (REIPPP).
“But unless new megawatts are added to the entire system, minimal load shedding will continue in the short term,” he said.
This has already been evident in load shedding, which has been persisting in 2024 so far, even pushing as high as stage 6. Currently, load shedding is rotating between stage 2 and stage 3 until further notice.
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.