Stage 8 load shedding hits as South Africa runs out of time

WHETHER Eskom wants to admit it or not, South Africa hit stage 8 load shedding this week, energy experts say – while the government continues to dither on its energy policy, putting billions of dollars in investment at risk.

As the country was thrust into all-day stage 6 load shedding this week, data published on Friday revealed that Eskom had actually cut over 7,000MW of power from the grid on Thursday.

By Eskom’s own definitions, this is equal to 8 stages of load shedding. The group explained the figure away by noting that the figure was around 5,700MW cut from the national grid (stage 6 load shedding) plus a further 1,400MW from its contracted customers (stage 4 load curtailment).

However, this reporting structure has also never been used before, indicating that something was off. It is also not the first time this has happened. Over 7,000MW of load was cut