Eskom extends stage 4 load shedding to Sunday – here’s the latest schedule

Power utility Eskom says that stage 4 load shedding will be extended to Sunday, following more breakdowns at its power stations.

Breakdowns of a generating unit each at Kriel, Majuba and Tutuka power stations over the past 24 hours have necessitated the continuation of load shedding at stage 4.

Stage 4 load shedding will continue until Sunday (18 September) at 05h00.

Thereafter load shedding will be implemented at Stage 3 until 05h00 on Monday.

“On Sunday, Eskom will provide the outlook of the load shedding stages for the week ahead as the teams are working around the clock to return units to service,” it said.

“While some generation units are anticipated to return to service next week, it is necessary to extend the load shedding to replenish the emergency generation reserves, which have been depleted by extensive utilisation to limit the amount of load shedding over the past two weeks.”

The group said that it has 7,210MW on planned maintenance, while another 15,319MW of capacity is unavailable due to breakdowns.

Speaking to the media on Monday (12 September), Eskom chief operating officer Jan Oberholzer said that the Eskom grid is extremely vulnerable to breakdowns and that any load shedding schedules are subject to change at short notice.

The COO said that Eskom intends to ramp up maintenance in the coming summer months, which could lead to sporadic load shedding. He added that maintenance remains a big issue for the group, as it is not seeing the outcomes it expected.

He said that as soon as some units are returned to operation following maintenance, they break down again soon after. He attributed the maintenance problems to a lack of appropriate skills and experience needed to address the issues.

The group recently published its load shedding outlook for the rest of the year, noting that it has to keep unplanned outages below 13,000MW to minimise rolling blackouts.

In a more load shedding-heavy scenario, if outages remain above 14,500MW, stage 2 load shedding will be frequent for the foreseeable future. If the power utility is unable to keep outages under 16,000MW, load shedding at higher stages becomes the standard.

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: Eskom’s plan to find the critical skills it needs to end load shedding