Stage 5 load shedding for Wednesday and Thursday – here’s the new schedule

Eskom has announced that it will implement stage 5 load shedding on Wednesday and Thursday (6 and 7 July), and that rolling blackouts will continue through to the weekend.

The power utility had hoped to keep load shedding at stage 4 at most, but is still experiencing a shortage in capacity.

“While some generation units have been returned to service over the past few days, this is not sufficient to suspend load shedding as other generation units have had to be taken offline for repairs,” it said.

“Load shedding will therefore continue being implemented at varying stages during the next few weeks as the generation capacity shortages persist. Eskom cautions the public that it will still take a few weeks for the power generation system to fully recover to pre-strike levels. Eskom will communicate and implement any changes as may be necessary.”

Depending on several possibilities – including the workforce fully returning to work to conduct much-needed repairs to equipment – it is anticipated load shedding will gradually be lowered to Stage 2 by the weekend.

The new schedule is as follows:

Wednesday (6 July)

• Stage 2 load shedding from 00h00 to 05h00
• Stage 4 load shedding from 05h00 to 16h00
• Stage 5 load shedding from 16h00 to 22h00
• Stage 4 load shedding from 22h00 to 00h00

Thursday (7 July)

• Stage 2 load shedding from 00h00 to 05h00
• Stage 4 load shedding from 05h00 to 16h00
• Stage 5 load shedding from 16h00 to 22h00
• Stage 4 load shedding from 22h00 to 00h00

Friday (8 July)

• Stage 2 load shedding from 00h00 to 05h00
• Stage 3 load shedding from 05h00 to 00h00

Saturday and Sunday (9 and 10 July)

• Stage 2 load shedding from 00h00 to 00h00

#POWERALERT1

Stage 5 loadshedding will be implemented on Wednesday and Thursday afternoons, with varying stages implemented for the rest of the week pic.twitter.com/z9CPHoFJKm

— Eskom Hld SOC Ltd (@Eskom_SA) July 5, 2022

Schedules 

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.

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.

Read: South Africa facing recession and downgrades if load shedding continues: Investec