Eskom issues Stage 4 load shedding alert

Power utility Eskom has issued a load shedding alert, warning of a high risk of outages this weekend—possibly up to stage 4.
This follows more than 10 months of uninterrupted electricity supply.
“Eskom has issued an alert indicating a high risk of load shedding at short notice.
“This is a potentially temporary setback. Load shedding is largely behind us due to the structural improvements in our generation fleet.
“However, over the past seven days, we have experienced several breakdowns that require extended repair times.
“This has necessitated the use of all our emergency reserves, which now need to be replenished.
“Consequently, we are closely monitoring the status of our current emergency reserves, and load shedding up to Stage 4 may be implemented over the weekend.”
Eskom said further updates will be issued in due course.
While load shedding has been suspended for a long time, energy experts have consistently warned that the energy crisis behind the outages is not over.
Eskom has seen a significant turnaround in its operations and has managed to restore a lot of its lost capacity, but the country still operates on a fine line between supply and demand.
The group’s summer outlook still had load shedding on the cards despite the likelihood of needing the outages being low.
Eskom’s 52-week outlook for 2025 also predicted risk scenarios where there would be a shortfall in energy supply, particularly around this time—the end of January and into February.
The outlook also shows a “likely risk” scenario where Eskom will have a shortfall of over 2,000MW for most winter months (from May).
In the past year, even with no load shedding, the utility has also had to turn to its Open Cycle Gas Turbines to avoid returning to nationwide outages.
Despite the high risk of stage 4 load shedding this weekend, Eskom said that its summer outlook remains the same.
