Eskom CEO’s outlook for load shedding in South Africa – here are the new schedules

Eskom chief executive Andre de Ruyter says that load shedding will be eased heading into the weekend, but that the system remains constrained.

In a virtual media briefing on Tuesday (9 November), de Ruyter said that the country is set to move to stage 3 load shedding at 05h00 on Wednesday, and should move to stage 2 load shedding on Friday. Following this, Eskom is hopeful that load shedding will be completely lifted on Saturday, he said.

New load shedding schedule:

• Stage 3 load shedding from 05h00 on Wednesday to 05h00 on Friday;
• Stage 2 load shedding from 05h00 on Friday to 05h00 on Saturday;
• Load shedding is expected to be lifted from 05h00 on Saturday.

Commenting on the latest breakdowns, De Ruyter said that for the last 24 months Eskom management has consistently signalled that there is a lack of capacity in the country and that at least another 6,000MW of power will be needed to be added to the grid.

He said that the latest REIPP bid window should assist with this, but that Eskom is in a liquidity-constrained position which makes it difficult to enter into long-term contracts to deal with these power outages.

“A recent new challenge that has reared its head, which is quite unfortunate, is that some municipalities have not played their role in introducing load shedding,” he said.

“During stage 2, some municipalities did not follow the required schedules or only implemented fractional load shedding over the required period – this is what led to the increase in stage 2 load shedding to stage 4.”

He said that Eskom has also seen breakdowns at its Matimba, Kendal, Medupi and Koeberg plants which have hindered performance. He added that Lethabo, historically one of Eskom’s most reliable power plants, has also experienced problems over the last week.

Returning power

De Ruyter said that between 3,800MW and 4,000MW will be added back to the grid by the weekend.

• Lethabo unit 1 (600MW) has already returned, with unit 2 expected to return by tomorrow morning, adding another 600MW;
• Kriel unit 1 is expected to return to the grid by 17h00 on Wednesday afternoon;
• Medupi unit 3, Majuba unit 4, Duvha unit 4, and two units at Tutuka are expected to return over the weekend.

Schedules

De Ruyter’s comments come after Eskom announced stage 4 load shedding on Monday. Load shedding is expected to feature in South Africa for the foreseeable future.

For people living in the major metros, load shedding schedules are available here:

• City of Johannesburg
• City of Ekurhuleni 
• City of Tshwane 
• City of Cape Town (PDF)
• Nelson Mandela Bay
• eThekwini
• Manguang
• Buffalo City

For access to other load shedding schedules, Eskom has made them available on loadshedding.eskom.co.za.

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