Prepare for load shedding today and all weekend, Eskom warns

For those hoping that load shedding would come to an end at 6am Thursday, we have some bad news for you.

Eskom in a longer-than-normal tweet late on Wednesday announced that there’s a “high probability” of load shedding over the weekend.

It will also continue to load shed at Stage 2 through Thursday and Friday.

The reason? A shortfall of around 2000 MW and greater than anticipated demand.

Eskom is also conducting critical maintenance on a number of plants, it added, suggesting that power cuts will become a fixture of life at least for the next 18 months.

#POWERALERT 2
Date: 5 February 2020

Stage 2 rotational loadshedding will continue until Friday, with a high probability of loadshedding over the weekend @SABCNewsOnline @IOL @eNCA @ewnupdates @Newzroom405 @TheSAnews @TimesLIVE @SowetanLIVE @News24 pic.twitter.com/pHvsebMMzf

— Eskom Hld SOC Ltd (@Eskom_SA) February 5, 2020

Unavailable capacity due to unplanned outages stood just under 12 000 MW as of Wednesday evening, rising slightly from Tuesday night.

That said, it will continue to pause power cuts for peak hour traffic if demand allows, it added. This will be largely dependent on its emergency reserves — its diesel-powered gas turbines and pumped storage schemes.

Eskom CEO Andre de Ruyter’s statement

Eskom’s update also included a quote from its new CEO Andre de Ruyter — a first since he took charge of the utility late last year.

“We don’t take the decision to implement load shedding lightly, but the reality is that our generating infrastructure is constrained and unreliable,” he begins.

“It is regrettable for us to have to implement load shedding, but it is unavoidable given the state of the generating infrastructure as well as unusually high demand”.

When is your city or municipality load shedding?

We’ve compiled a list of some of the country’s largest cities’ and municipalities’ schedules right here. Be sure to bookmark this little resource.

Shopping for a UPS?

If you need a battery backup to get you through the dark, we take a look at some of the highest used-rated UPS units on sale in South Africa. Peruse the article here.

Feature image: Andy Walker/Memeburn