By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Rugby fans can expect slightly fewer interruptions to their TV time this weekend, with scheduled power cuts expected to ease a little from early on Saturday morning.
This follows the implementation of Stage 6 when Eskom recently suffered several breakdowns at the same time as it ramped up maintenance.
Due to the recovery of some generation units while planned maintenance is still underway, Stage 5 load shedding will continue for the rest of Friday (8 September), running until 05h00 on Saturday.
Load shedding will then be downgraded to stage 3 until 16h00, where outages will then be ramped up to stage 4.
Eskom said that load shedding will downgraded to stage 1 on Sunday between 05h00 and 16h00, however, this will not be the case for South Africa’s first match in the World Cup.
South Africa’s first match against Scotland kicks off at 17h45 on Sunday (10 September), where stage 4 load shedding will again be in effect.
Eskom said it will publish another update on Sunday afternoon or should any significant changes occur.
Breakdowns have reduced to 15,895MW of generating capacity while the capacity out of service for planned maintenance is 5,474MW.
Over the past 48 hours, a generating unit each at Camden and Kendal power stations was taken offline
for repairs.
In the same period, a generating unit each at Arnot, Kendal, Matla and Tutuka power stations was returned to service.
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.
Meanwhile the Democratic Alliance (DA) application against the recent hike in electricity tariffs and the ongoing load shedding crisis will be heard in the High Court in Pretoria on Monday.
Party leader John Steenhuisen says the DA will ask the court to declare load shedding unconstitutional.
It will also ask the court to review the 18.65% by the national energy regulator NERSA.
“We will argue for two important things,” Steenhuisen said on Friday.
“Firstly, that the court declares our electricity crisis and load shedding unconstitutional. It’s not the fault of tax-paying, law-abiding South African citizens that the government including the president, NERSA and Eskom were unable to prevent our electricity crisis because they were too busy stealing to do their jobs”.
“Secondly, that the court declares NERSA’s tariff hikes decision as invalid. DA will seek just and equitable relief to ensure that tariff hike decisions will not be implemented without NERSA taking steps to protect poor households,” he added.
Steenhuisen said South Africans who cannot afford electricity must be protected by NERSA, before it decides on tariff hikes.
“The ongoing electricity crisis is devastating, with stage 6 load shedding costing the country’s economy R900 million every day. More expensive electricity means a more expensive life that South Africans should not be forced to pay for,” said Steenhuisen.