Staff Reporter.
Due to the increasing demand combined with insufficient generating capacity and the need to manage the emergency reserves, Stage 4 load shedding will be implemented from 14:00 today until 05:00 on Saturday, Eskom said on Monday.
After announcing that load shedding would be on a stage 3/stage 4 rotation, all-day stage 4 load shedding will now be implemented until at least Saturday, it said.
Stage 4 load shedding will kick in from 14h00 on Monday and continue until 05h00 on Saturday.
“Eskom will closely monitor the power system and communicate any changes to load shedding should it
be required,” it said.
Unplanned outages have increased slightly from 15,386 MW to 15,424MW of generating capacity, while the capacity out of service for planned maintenance increased from 5,617 MW to 6,280MW.
Eskom’s load forecast for the evening peak demand is 28,123MW.
In the last 24 hours, 500MW of generating capacity was taken offline, whilst in the same period 600MW were returned to service.
Approximately 1,300MW of generating capacity is anticipated to return to service by Tuesday evening.
The latest escalation in load shedding comes as South Africa passes a bleak record.
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.