Load shedding pushed to stage 6

Power utility Eskom says that load shedding was pushed to stage 6 in the early hours of the morning on Sunday.

This followed multiple unit trips at Camden Power stations.

Stage 6 load shedding will continue until further notice.

This measure followed the implementation of Stage 3, necessitated by multiple unit trips at Majuba Power Station and a unit trip at Medupi.

These resulted in a loss of 3,864 MW in generation capacity, while planned maintenance accounted for 7,506 MW.

“Additionally, to replenish emergency reserves and prepare for the week ahead, stage 6 load shedding was essential,” the utility said.

The group called an urgent briefing at 11h00 on Sunday to address the outages.

Stage 6 load shedding was last implemented about a year ago, when 13 units went offline in February 2024, and Eskom faced delays in getting them back up.

It appears as if a similar situation has struck once again.

According to energy expert Chris Yelland, Eskom has been running its Open Cycle Gas Turbines (OCGTs) flat out this past week, citing data from analyst Clyde Mallinson.

This stands in stark contrast to a media statement published by Eskom on Friday (21 February), in which it said that its systems were stable and that it had adequate reserves.

The fact that load shedding returned so suddenly, along with a rapid escalation to stage 6, shows once again that South Africa’s electricity grid remains extremely vulnerable.

While Eskom has improved its performance over the last year and managed to keep lights on most of the time, the group’s capacity issues have not fundamentally shifted.

Any setbacks or interruptions risk plunging the country back into darkness.

Economists and analysts have flagged this problem, saying that the country needs to urgently boost capacity.

This state of affairs also serves as a stark reminder that South Africa’s growth prospects are effectively capped.

While president Cyril Ramaphosa wants to aggressively chase economic growth of 3% and higher in 2025 and beyond, the power grid cannot support the growth the country needs to shift the dial on things like jobs.

According to the Bureau for Economic Research, as soon as businesses come online or expand, their dependency on the national grid will boost demand for power.

As is evidenced by the current outages, the grid cannot support this consistently or with certainty.