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Eskom has announced that loadshedding will be reduced to Stage 4 from midday until five o’clock in the morning on Monday.
This comes after Eskom implemented Stage 6 loadshedding on Friday citing shortage of generation capacity resulting to power cuts.
It further said the implementations of Stage 6 loadshedding over the past few days has allowed the replenishment of the emergency reserves at our pumped storage and open cycle gas turbine power stations.
“Due to this improvement, loadshedding will be reduced to Stage 4 from midday until 5am on Monday. Thereafter, Stage 3 loadshedding will be implemented from 5am until 4pm on Monday, followed by Stage 4 loadsheding from 4pm until 5am on Tuesday.
“This pattern of implementing Stage 3 loadshedding in the morning and Stage 4 loadshedding in the evening will be repeated daily until Thursday,” the power utility said.
Eskom added that it will closely monitor the power system and communicate any changes to loadshedding should it be required.
“Unplanned outages are currently at 15 386 megawatts of generating capacity, while the capacity out of service for planned maintenance is 5 617 megawatts.
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“Approximately 2 500 megawatts of generating capacity is anticipated to return to service by Tuesday evening,” Eskom stated.
Minister in the Presidency responsible for Electricity, Dr Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, assured citizens that Eskom is working to ensure that generating units that have been lost are returned to service and that the emergency reserves are replenished.
Addressing a media briefing on Friday, the Minister said the implementation of Stage 6 load shedding is a significant setback but government remains confident in its ability to resolve the energy security challenge.
“We think that in the next two weeks, we will have an additional buffer. We are expecting Unit 2 of Kusile to come online by the end of this month and we expect Unit 5 at Kusile to come online by the third week of December,” Ramokgopa said.
