• Over the weekend Eskom dropped loadshedding to Stage 1 on Sunday, before raising it significantly in the afternoon.
• The power utility confirms a mix of Stage 4 and Stage 5 loadshedding until further notice.
• This will see Stage 4 implemented between 05:00 to 16:00 and Stage 5 from 15:00 to 05:00.

This weekend South Africans experienced a short-lived reprieve from higher Stages of loadshedding, with Stage 1 in effect for part of Sunday. This was escalated in the afternoon, with Eskom issuing a power alert confirming that Stage 4 would be implemented until 16:00 on Monday afternoon.

The power utility added that Stage 5 would then be implemented until 05:00 the following morning, with Eskom rotating between Stage 4 and Stage 5 until further notice. This means that Stage 4 will be in effect from 05:00 to 16:00, with Stage 5 taking over from 16:00 to 05:00.

At the time of writing, it is unclear whether a lower level will be implemented during the course of the week, but for now, loss of generating units at several power stations is cited as the reason for the current state of loadshedding.

More specifically Eskom explains that it managed to return a generating unit at its Arnot power station to service, it has also lost generating units at Kriel, Medupi, Tutuka, all of which were taken offline for repairs. At the time of writing, breakdowns currently account for 17 008MW of capacity lost, with a further 4 600MW unavailable due to maintenance.

As such, South Africans have another tough week ahead of them.

As always, we suggest downloading the EskomSePush (ESP) app on your smartphone to keep up to date on the in-effect Stage in your area.

[Image – Photo by Anne Nygård on Unsplash]