ESKOM has announced stage 2 load-shedding between 16:00 and midnight from Monday to Wednesday next week, 10–12 October 2022.
“To the extent possible, Eskom will endeavour to limit load-shedding to night-time to have minimal impact on the economy and population,” the power utility said.
“Load-shedding will be used to replenish emergency generation reserves during the night to bolster generation capacity. Eskom will publish a further update on Wednesday afternoon, or as soon as any significant changes occur.”
Eskom said since Saturday, two generation units at Kriel and a unit each at Kendal, Komati, Lethabo, Majuba and Matla power stations have returned to service.
A generating unit each at Kendal and Kusile power stations were taken offline for repairs.
“We currently have 5,487MW on planned maintenance, while another 14,061MW of capacity is unavailable due to breakdowns.”
The brief reprieve from load-shedding over the weekend came after more than a month of continuous power cuts — a new record for Eskom.
Its streak started on 6 September 2022 when Eskom implemented intermittent load-shedding.
On 8 September 2022, it escalated to continuous load-shedding, peaking at stage 6 for several days from Sunday, 18 September 2022, due to a flood of unit breakdowns.
This year has already been South Africa’s worst for load-shedding, far surpassing 2021.
According to data from load-shedding tracking app EskomSePush, South Africa’s state-owned power utility has implemented 2,088 hours of load-shedding (87 days) in 2022.
During last year, Eskom’s previous worst, the app recorded 1,153 hours of load-shedding.
It’s important to note that the hours of load-shedding do not take the severity of the power cuts into account.
In addition to recording more hours of load-shedding in 2022, this year has also had much longer bouts of stage 4, 5, and 6 load-shedding than in 2021.
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