Eskom reduces load-shedding — here is the timetable

Staff Writer14 December 2022

Eskom reduces load-shedding — here is the timetable

Eskom has announced that it will reduce load-shedding from stage 5 to stage 4 from 05:00 Thursday morning.

Stage 4 will run until 05:00 on Sunday morning. After that, stage 3 load-shedding will be implemented on Sunday.

“Eskom will publish a further update as soon as there are any significant changes,” the state-owned power utility said.

The schedule may be summarised as follows:

  • Stage 5 — Until 05:00 Thursday, 15 December 2022
  • Stage 4 — Thursday, 15 December (05:00) to Sunday, 18 December (05:00)
  • Stage 3 — Sunday, 18 December (05:00) until further notice

“Since Tuesday morning, a unit each at Camden, Kriel, Majuba, Matla and Duvha power stations were taken offline for repairs and planned maintenance,” stated Eskom.

“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.”

A generating unit each at Grootvlei, Camden, Kriel, Majuba power stations returned to service.

Eskom said it 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,” it said.

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

Last 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.

It had been running an alternating schedule up to that point — stage 3 during the evening peak and early morning, and stage 2 during the day.

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

Following analyst commentary that Eskom would need to increase power cuts to stage 7 to accommodate planned maintenance on its Koeberg nuclear power station, the utility issued a statement promising it would not exceed stage 6 load-shedding.

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”.