Some relief as Load shedding is reduced to stage 4 from Thursday morning

Embattled power utility Eskom announced that it will reduce load shedding from stage 5 to stage 4 from Thursday morning at 05:00.

Stage 4 will run from Thursday until 05:00 on Sunday morning. From there, stage 3 load shedding will be implemented on Sunday.

Eskom spokesperson, Sikonathi Mantshantsha, said that since Tuesday morning, A unit each at Camden, Kriel, Majuba, Matla and Duvha power stations were taken offline for repairs and planned maintenance.

“In addition, the delay in returning to service a generating unit each at Arnot, Duvha and Hendrina power stations has contributed to the capacity constraints,” Mantshantsha said.

“A generating unit each at Grootvlei, Camden, Kriel and Majuba power stations have returned to service,” he said.

Mantshantsha said Eskom has 6,618MW of capacity on scheduled maintenance, while another 15,996MW is unavailable due to breakdowns.

“Eskom requests the public to reduce the usage of electricity and to exercise patience and tolerance during this difficult period,” he said.

He further said that load shedding was only implemented as a last resort in view of the shortage of generation capacity and the need to attend to breakdowns.

Eskom will publish a further update as soon as there are significant changes.

South Africa is currently on day 44 of a recorded-long load shedding streak.

The reduction in load shedding comes after a week of intensive rotational power cuts.

Lat Wednesday, 7 December 2022, Eskom escalated load shedding to stage 4 at short notice after informing the public that it hoped to reduce power cuts to a constant stage 2.

However, a few hours after announcing stage 4, the power utility said it had to increase load shedding further to stage 6.

It also said load shedding would drop to stage 5 by Friday.

On Friday, it announced plans to further reduce load shedding over the weekend, going down to stage 2 by Sunday.

However, by Saturday morning, Eskom had to scrap that plan and announced stage 5 load shedding “until further notice”.

Source: My Broadband, IOL, Engineering News, image from Twitter: @MBAdvertiser

Doctor Mahlaule

Doctor Mahlaule previously worked as a Freelance Journalist at Find-it SA where he was responsible for writing news articles and sharing them on social media platforms. Doctor Mahlaule holds a Diploma in Journalism, BA in Communication Science and a BA Honours in Media Studies. Doctor began his journey as a knowledge Management and Communications Intern at Zenex Foundation. He was responsible for support in event management, social media, website maintenance, writing and brand management. On weekends Doctor attends prison ministry and shares the scriptures with inmates at Krugersdorp prison and plays soccer in the afternoon on some weekends. He has a passion for reading and writing and enjoys going out with friends and socialising in his spare time. He has a one-year-old son and is planning on getting married soon. When asked about what keeps him going, he said: “My family keeps me going. I’m the man I am because I come from a loving home. I have a very supportive family who always encourages me to keep pushing hard.”

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