• Eskom is currently replenishing its emergency reserves to cater to the increased demand experienced during the week.
• With this and several generating units still out of action, Stage 2 loadshedding will be in effect continously.
• Eskom says it hopes to return 2 320MW of capacity by Wednesday when it will have an outlook for the rest of the week.

UPDATE:

Following publication of this story, Eskom has upgraded the severity of power cuts to Stage 3. Stage 3 will be in effect from 16:00 on Monday until 05:00 on Tuesday when Stage 2 loadshedding will be in place.

This pattern will continue “until further notice” Eskom said.

As many as five generation units have been taken offline since Sunday and two units scheduled for maintenance have seen delays.

It’s unclear whether this changes the outlook for the rest of the week but Eskom says it will provide an update on Wednesday.

Original story below.

Despite every intention to suspend loadshedding at the weekend, Eskom has had to keep power cuts at Stage 2 after it lost generation capacity Friday evening / Saturday morning..

Looking at the week ahead, loadshedding will remain at Stage 2.

“Despite the return to service of five generating units in the last 36 hours, the need to replenish and stabilise the emergency reserves in preparation for the weekday electricity demand, as well as the marginally deteriorated available generation capacity, necessitates that Stage 2 loadshedding continue to be implemented until further notice,” Eskom said in a power alert issued on Sunday afternoon.

By Sunday afternoon, 14 759MW of generating capacity was unavailable due to unplanned outages with a further 7 639MW unavailable due to planned maintenance.

Even as we write this we are aware that Eskom has developed a habit of playing fast and loose with the loadshedding stages. On Friday it announced that there would be no loadshedding between 05:00 and 16:00 on Saturday and Sunday but on Saturday morning, Stage 2 power cuts were put in place.

The utility says that it will endeavour to return as much as 2 320MW of capacity back to the grid by Wednesday. The evening peak forecast for the week ahead is 25 005MW.

Despite the push to continuous Stage 2 loadshedding, the situation at Eskom seems to have improved. Most of last week was marked by no loadshedding between 05:00 and 16:00 and depending on how schedules lined up, you may have escaped loadshedding altogether.

“We have really turned the corner,” Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa said in a statement last week. “I’m not suggesting that we have ended load shedding. I’m simply saying that we can see that there’s light at the end of the tunnel and this is not an oncoming train but it’s a system whose health continues to improve and improve at levels that even exceeded our projections and expectations.”

We recommend keeping an eye on Eskom’s social media channels including X, formerly Twitter, and Facebook or download the ESP app for iOS and Android.

[Image – Jaye Haych on Unsplash