As the work week comes to a close and last-minute weekend plans are made, one of the country’s least favourite announcements arrives. Eskom’s latest power alert announces that stage 3 loadshedding will be implemented from 4pm today until midnight.
Thereafter, this weekend will see a repeating pattern of stages 0, 1 and 4 loadshedding being implemented.
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According to the power utility, loadshedding will be suspended between midnight and 5am on both Saturday and Sunday. This will be followed by stage 1 being implemented from 5am to 4pm on both days. Thereafter, stage 4 will kick in until midnight.
Take a look:
Breakdowns currently stand at 16 546MW of generating capacity, while the generating capacity out of service for planned maintenance is 2 497MW.
Over the past 24 hours, a generating unit each at Kendal and Lethabo and two generating units at Camden power stations were returned to service.
In the same period, generating units at Arnot and at Matla power stations were taken out of service due to breakdowns. The further delays in returning to service a generating unit at Arnot, Grootvlei and Hendrina power stations are contributing to the current capacity constraints.
Eskom says it will publish updates if any significant changes occur.
According to the City of Cape Town’s latest loadshedding update, City customers will remain on stage 1 until 10pm this evening. Thereafter, stage 3 will be implemented until midnight.
City says its customers can expect to follow an identical schedule for Saturday and Sunday.
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Picture: Benjamin le Roux / Unsplash