Weekend with less load shedding ahead | Rhewal

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Phase 1 and phase 2 load shedding will apply alternately over the weekend. If all goes well, South Africans will also experience no load shedding for a large part of Sunday.

This according to Eskom’s latest notice detailing load shedding for the weekend.

According to this, the country will remain on phase 2 load shedding until Saturday at 05:00. After that, phase 1 will apply until Saturday at 16:00, before phase 2 load shedding is reintroduced from 16:00 until Sunday at 05:00. The power supplier then hopes to lift load shedding until Sunday at 16:00 and re-introduce phase 1 up to and including 16:00 on Monday.

“Eskom will announce any further developments as they occur.”

South Africans have experienced less load shedding in the past week, with phase 2 and 3 being introduced continuously.

However, Chris Yelland, independent energy expert, has the last week told Rhewal that this does not at all mean that load shedding is a thing of the past. He attributes the past week’s low load shedding phases mainly to little economic activity over the past long weekend. “The power grid is so unpredictable that sometimes we can have low load shedding for a week, only to experience the following weeks of high phases of load shedding.”

According to Eskom, 14,489 MW of generation capacity is currently unavailable due to unplanned outages and a further 6,190 MW out of service for planned maintenance.

“During the past 24 hours, one generating unit each at the Hendrina, Majuba and Tutuka power plants has been put back into service. At the same time, a generating unit at Arnot, Camden, Kriel and Tutuka was removed from the system for repairs. We are also still waiting for units at Duvha and Medupi to be put back into operation,” says Eskom.