Power utility Eskom has announced that load shedding will once again be pushed up to stage 6 – the second time such an escalation has been warranted in less than a week.
The group said that load shedding will be pushed up to stage 6 at 20h00 on Tuesday (28 November) until 05h00 on Wednesday. Thereafter, outages will return to stage 4.
The stage 4 and stage 6 rotation will continue until Saturday.
The schedule is as follows:
Thursday, 30 November
Stage 6: 00h00 to 05h00
Stage 4: 05h00 to 20h00
Stage 6: 20h00 to 00h00
Friday, 1 December
Stage 6: 00h00 to 05h00
Stage 4: 05h00 to 20h00
Stage 6: 20h00 to 00h00
Saturday, 2 December
Stage 6: 00h00 to 05h00
Stage and time TBA
Eskom said the escalation is necessary to replenish emergency reserves.
There has also been a slight increase in breakdowns, which have increased by 401 MW to 15,825MW, whilst planned maintenance increased by 555 MW to 6,835MW of generation capacity.
1,300 MW of generation capacity was returned to service in the last 24 hours, it said.
“Eskom will closely monitor the power system and communicate any changes to load shedding should it be required,” it said.
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.