Eskom drops load shedding to stage 3 – here’s the new schedule
Eskom has announced that load shedding will be reduced to stage 3 during the night throughout the weekend.
The national power utility said that courtesy of diesel supplied by PetroSA this week, it is able to reduce load shedding, however, only during night time.
Eskom said that load shedding will come down from Stage 4 to Stage 3 between 16:00 and 05:00 up until Monday morning.
Daytime load-shedding will be maintained at Stage 2 during 05:00 – 16:00 daily until further notice, said the utility.
The schedule is as follows:
Thursday, 24 November
- Stage 2: until 16h00
- Stage 3: 16h00 to 00h00
Friday, 25 November
- Stage 3: 00h00 to 05h00
- Stage 2: 05h00 to 16h00
- Stage 3: 16h00 to 00h00
Saturday, 26 November
- Stage 3: 00h00 to 05h00
- Stage 2: 05h00 to 16h00
- Stage 3: 16h00 to 00h00
Sunday, 27 November
- Stage 3: 00h00 to 05h00
- Stage 2: 05h00 to 16h00
- Stage 3: 16h00 to 00h00
Monday, 28 November
- Stage 3: 00h00 to 05h00
- After 05h00 – To be determined
Eskom said that it would publish a further update as soon as there are any significant changes.
Eskom had been scrambling for diesel with little left in its reserves and no money to buy it.
The minister of public enterprises, Pravin Gordhan, announced this Thursday (24 November) that the government had been able to liaison between PetroSA and Eskom to get 50 million litres to the necessary power stations.
Eskom’s open-cycle gas turbines, which are used to generate energy during times of high demand across the country, require diesel to operate. The turbines have a two-stage load shedding capacity.
“The continued implementation of load shedding is mainly due to the high levels of breakdowns and the limited emergency generation reserves,” said Eskom.
Since Wednesday afternoon, a generating unit each at Grootvlei, Kendal and Tutuka power stations has been taken offline for repairs, added the utility.
“Four units at Camden Power Station have also been taken offline to repair a water leak on a line that supplies auxiliary cooling water.”
Three units are also offline at Kusile Power Station are offline due to the duct (chimney structure) failure late in October and will remain offline for a few months while repairs to the chimney system take place, added Eskom.
“We currently have 6 000MW on planned maintenance, while another 14 160MW of capacity is unavailable due to breakdowns.”
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.
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