During a media briefing held earlier today, Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter confirmed that the country would be moving from Stage 3 loadshedding as of 12:00 midday, according to EWN.

Loadshedding will be shifted to Stage 2 and then at 5:00 on Friday morning (12th November), Eskom planned to lift loadshedding altogether.

For the past two weeks Eskom has battled to keep the lights on, with continued demand for electricity, failing systems at power plants and tripping of stations across the Southern Africa region resulting in our current woes.

As for why the power utility has been able to lift loadshedding ahead of schedule, with Stage 2 originally set to take effect from Friday morning until Saturday morning, Eskom says that an estimated 2 000 megawatts of generating capacity has been recovered since Stage 4 loadshedding was announced on Monday this week.

Whether Eskom can keep to its word and ensure that there is no further loadshedding this weekend, remains to be seen, as no official power alert has been issued following de Ruyter’s briefing this morning.

As such, a cautious approach to electricity use should be adopted by all.

[Image – Photo by Júnior Ferreira on Unsplash]