- Loadshedding is back this week and we have the schedule.
- Rolling blackouts will be implemented in an alternating approach, with Stage 1 during the day and Stage 2 in the evening.
- Eskom says that it is struggling with its emergency generation reserves and with technical faults.
You know what it is. Another week, another schedule of loadshedding. We live in a terrible time where South Africans are generally getting used to dealing without electricity for a few hours of the day, despite paying for it.
On Monday, Eskom announced that rolling blackouts would be implemented throughout this week in a phased approach, with Stage 1 set for the day from 05:00 to 16:00 and Stage 2 set to counter the evening energy load from 16:00 back to 05:00 when it returns to Stage 1.
This system of alternating stages will continue until Friday. Stages 1 and 2 mark the least amount of loadshedding overall, but it still means that some areas across the country will be bereft of electricity for at least two to four hours daily.
Stage 1 loadshedding will be implemented daily until Friday, while Stage 2 loadshedding will be
implemented nightly until Friday pic.twitter.com/oLJGxeszav— Eskom Hld SOC Ltd (@Eskom_SA) November 1, 2022
In an official Twitter post, the embattled utility says that we are dealing with loadshedding this week because it needs to “preserve emergency generation reserves.” Last week, Eskom blamed its varying stages of blackouts on a shortage of emergency reserves of diesel and pumped water.
It seems this shortage has bled into the new week in some regard which is only being aggravated by a delay in returning four generating units back to service. Many of its already operating units are also dealing with “technical faults.”
These breakdowns have robbed 14 499MW of capacity from the country’s energy grid. Eskom says planned maintenance has taken away an additional 3 945MW.
As always, we urge you to check out the popular loadshedding tracking app EskomSePush for Android and iOS to make sure you aren’t caught off guard by outages.
On Monday, Eskom announced that it had decommissioned its Komati Power Station in Mpumalanga. The 61-year-old power plant was shut down at midday with Eskom saying that its decommissioning would not affect the grid or local economy in any meaningful way.
“Eskom has held extensive engagements with the employees, labour unions, the community and all affected stakeholders and communicated the requirement to shut down the plant timeously and clearly with everyone involved,” the utility stated.
The infrastructure at the plant will reportedly be turned into a renewable energy generation site. At the site, 150MW of solar energy, 70MW of wind and 150MW of storage batteries will be contributing to the country’s energy grid.
Previously, the ancient power station was only generating 121MW of capacity through coal fire. Eskom says the repurposing of the plant will create a host of new temporary jobs and will allow the establishment of a training facility aimed at upskilling the local community.
