Load shedding to continue all weekend – here’s the new schedule
Power utility Eskom says that stage 4 load shedding will continue until the weekend, with stage 3 continuing thereafter.
Stage 4 load shedding will persist until 05h00 on Saturday (1 October), after which stage 3 load shedding will continue until 05h00 on Monday (3 October).
Eskom said it will publish a further update on Sunday afternoon or as soon as there are any significant changes.
“Diesel deliveries have started at PetroSA’s facility in Mossel Bay, with the vessel having berthed this morning. Transferring the fuel to the Gourikwa and Akerlig Open Cycle Gas Turbine stations will take place throughout the weekend to replenish by Monday.
“Eskom will also use the weekend to replenish the dam levels at the pumped storage schemes, which have been utilised extensively to complement generation capacity,” it said.
It is anticipated the first unit of the Camden Power Station will return to service during the weekend, with the remaining returning over the course of the following ten days, the power utility said.
In addition to all the eight Camden Power Station units that were taken offline due to de-mineralised water contamination last night as a result of the incorrect valve being opened, a generating unit at Kriel Power Station was also taken offline for repairs.
The grid currently has 5,206MW on planned maintenance, while another 15,862MW of capacity is unavailable due to breakdowns.
South Africa has been suffering continued blackouts for weeks, with load shedding hitting its worst point at stage 6, followed by a week of stage 5 outages. Energy availability has been its lowest on record, with the estimate for September at 51%.
The country has also hit other records, including the longest streak of load shedding. Analyst estimate that South Africa’s economy is losing between R150 million and R200 million a day due to load shedding.
Eskom 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 cannot 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: South Africa needs R1.2 trillion to end the energy crisis: Eskom
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