Eskom to ease load shedding again this weekend – here’s the new schedule

Power utility Eskom says that it will start easing load shedding into the weekend, scaling back from stage 6 into Friday.

Load shedding will be implemented at stage 5 from 16h00 on Thursday (18 May) until 05h00 on Friday.

After that, various stages of load shedding will be implemented ranging between stage 1 and stage 4 over the weekend.

The schedule is as follows:

Thursday, 18 May

• Stage 4: until 16h00
• Stage 5: 16h00 to 00h00

Friday, 19 May

• Stage 5: 00h00 to 05h00
• Stage 4: 05h00 to 16h00
• Stage 5: 16h00 to 00h00

Saturday, 20 May

• Stage 5: 00h00 to 05h00
• Stage 3: 05h00 to 16h00
• Stage 4: 16h00 to 00h00

Sunday, 21 May

• Stage 4: 00h00 to 05h00
• Stage 1: 05h00 to 16h00
• Stage 4: 16h00 to 00h00

Breakdowns have decreased to 16,369MW of generating capacity while the generating capacity out of service for planned maintenance is 3,369MW.

During the last 24 hours, a generating unit at Matla Power Station has returned to service.

In the same period, another generation unit at Matla Power Station was taken out of service due to breakdowns. In addition, the delay in returning units to service at Camden, Hendrina, Kendal, Matla and two generating units at Tutuka Power Stations continue to add to the current capacity constraints.

The reduction in unplanned outages is good news, with Eskom on Thursday stressing that it needs to keep these breakdowns below 18,000MW to avoid stage 8 load shedding in the coming months.

In a system update presented to the media, the power utility warned that the coming winter period would place extreme stress on the grid, and that the group’s baseline scenario for load shedding requires unplanned outages to be below 15,000MW to limit load shedding to between stage 3 and stage 5.

Eskom has struggled to keep outages below 17,000MW for some time and has even gone far beyond 18,000MW on certain days.

The group said that it would be implementing mitigation efforts, including burning more diesel and turning to demand-side management to try and balance supply and demand.

However, it warned that there is an extremely high risk of stage 7 or stage 8 load shedding if any of these measures proves ineffective in doing so.

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 winter load shedding scenarios – risk of stage 8 extremely high