Eskom has announced that due to the cold weather, stage 6 load shedding is being implemented an hour earlier than expected.<\/p>\n
Stage 6 is now set for 15:00 this Monday (15 May) – previously 16:00.<\/p>\n
Colder weather has ramped up electricity demand across the country, as expected by researchers, energy analysts and the minister of electricity himself.<\/p>\n
Eskom said that the previously announced alternation between stage 6 in the evening and stage 4 during the day will continue.<\/p>\n
The schedule is as follows:<\/p>\n
Monday, 15 May<\/strong><\/p>\n Tuesday, 16 May<\/strong><\/p>\n Wednesday, 17 May<\/strong><\/p>\n The company has again asked for non-essential appliances to be switched off.<\/p>\n As winter is fast approaching, Eskom is in negotiations with the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) to be granted more money to fund the burning of diesel to make up for the lack of electricity supply.<\/p>\n Eskom has stated that it is also working on the possibility of increasing the diesel allowance from R8 billion to R30 billion in accordance with the electricity minister’s winter plan.<\/p>\n Electricity minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa plans to burn large sums of diesel to power open-cycle gas turbines (OCGTs) when outages and breakdowns occur at coal-fired power plants.<\/p>\n The OCGTs are traditionally meant for short-term emergency situations however with winter promising to be bleak for South Africa and the generation shortfall to increase, they may be looked into as a means to prevent more sever load shedding.<\/p>\n Schedules\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n For people living in the major metros, load shedding schedules are available here:<\/p>\n For access to other load shedding schedules, Eskom has made them available on\u00a0loadshedding.eskom.co.za.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n\n
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