Eskom extends load shedding suspension – with a warning
Power utility Eskom is taking things day-by-day with the suspension of load shedding, adding another 24 hours to the outage break.
Load shedding will now remain suspended until 16h00 on Thursday, the group said – but it warned that its generation fleet is “fairly constrained”.
“While the generation fleet is currently fairly constrained, emergency reserves are adequate and as a result, load shedding will remain suspended until 16:00 on Thursday,” it said.
If South Africans want the suspensions to continue, the group said that energy users need to keep demand in check.
“Eskom appeals to the members of the public to reduce demand at 17h00 to 21h00 by switching off geysers and pool pumps to ease pressure on the power system and continue suspending load-shedding,” it said.
Load shedding is currently expected to return on Thursday evening at stage 1 from 16h00 to 05h00 on Friday.
Thereafter, load shedding will be suspended until 16h00 again.
The group said it will communicate should any significant changes occur.
Wednesday, 25 October
- Suspended: 00h00 to 00h00
Thursday, 26 October
- Suspended: 00h00 to 16h00
- Stage 1: 16h00 to 00h00
Friday, 27 October
- Stage 1: 00h00 to 05h00
- Stage and time TBA
Analysis of the data published by Eskom on its fleet performance shows that the group’s energy availability factor has taken a positive turn, with plants performing better than at the same time in 2021 and 2022.
Breakdowns have also improved – which is key to the group’s plan to keep load shedding contained in the summer months.
However, the data also shows that energy supplies aren’t significantly higher, and that much of the improvement seen in the system comes from lower demand.
Regardless, the suspensions and much lower stages of load shedding have led to a noticeable turn in the long-term trend data for outages in the country.
For the first time this year, the projections for total blackout hours has fallen under a cumulative 80 hours, currently standing at 79.6 days.
This is a massive retreat of 21 days from the high of 101 days predicted at the end of May.
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: Big shift for load shedding in South Africa – with some of the best news all year
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