By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Stage 5 load shedding will now be implemented continuously until further notice due to higher-than-expected demand, Eskom announced on Wednesday.
The grpup will provide an update later this afternoon.
This announcement follows Eskom suspending load shedding for periods of the Easter weekend. The country has been near-permanent load shedding since September 2022, only breaking from the blackouts for three days.
The South African Reserve Bank anticipates the country to face a total of 250 days of load shedding – stalling businesses and hampering economic growth.
South Africa should not shy away from spending to fix the power crisis, electricity minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa said before a cabinet decision later in April on his proposals to end the worst power blackouts on record.
Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, appointed in March last month to the newly created role, was speaking in an interview less than two months after the Treasury granted Eskom R254bn of debt relief over the next three years.
Ramokgopa said he thought focusing on improving the performance of Eskom’s ailing coal-fired generation plants was the best opportunity to lower the intensity of power outages. But he said other interventions were needed, including investing in the capacity of the national grid and maintaining large outlays on diesel for Eskom’s emergency open-cycle gas turbines.
“Continued high levels of load-shedding penalise the SA economy and causes untold injury to the poor and our ability to attract investment, “he said.
If SA borrowing costs had to rise to fund diesel purchases then that was a necessary trade-off given the effect outages were having on unemployment and growth prospects.
“I am presenting to cabinet and they will make that determination [on how to address the power crisis] at the end of the month.”
Ramokgopa said grid constraints meant some renewable energy projects that had already been built were being throttled and new projects were being jeopardised.
He said another set of interventions cabinet would consider included Eskom investing more in the coal mines it buys from to ensure better quality supplies and allowing Eskom to buy directly from original equipment manufacturers rather than from intermediaries.
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.