Cape Town - Less than five hours since it announced the suspension of load shedding, electricity service provider Eskom has once again announced that it will implement stage 4 load shedding from 5pm on Sunday until 4pm on Monday.
Thereafter the power utility company said that it would shift from stage 4 load shedding to stage 5 during the evenings between 4pm and 12am from Monday to Wednesday.
In a statement, Eskom revealed that its load shedding schedule for the week would vary between stages 4 and 2 during the day until Wednesday.
According to Eskom, the changes in the stages of load shedding would be more erratic due to the absence of the buffer that is normally provided by the diesel generation capacity between generating unit breakdowns.
Eskom Western Cape spokesperson Kyle Cookson said Eskom would continue to publish updates on significant changes as soon as they were confirmed.
He said: “The increased implementation of load shedding is mainly due to the high levels of breakdowns and the depleted emergency generation reserves. Three units at Kusile Power Station are offline due to a duct (chimney structure) failure late in October, and will remain offline for a few months while repairs to the chimney system take place.
“Unit 1 of Koeberg Nuclear Power Station will continue to generate at a reduced output over the next three weeks as the fuel is depleted before the refuelling and maintenance outage scheduled to commence in December 2022.”
Cookson also revealed that since Sunday morning a generating unit each at Arnot, Grootvlei and Majuba power stations were all taken offline for repairs.
He said: “A generating unit at Kriel Power Station was returned to service. We currently have 5 354MW on planned maintenance, while another 14 495MW of capacity is unavailable due to breakdowns.
“Load shedding is implemented only as a last resort given the shortage of generation capacity and the need to attend to breakdowns,” said Cookson.
Meanwhile, City of Cape Town customers are also set to experience stage 4 from 5pm today until midnight.
According to the City, on Monday City customers will experience stage 4 load shedding from 12am until 6am, then stage 2 from 6am until 4pm that afternoon. They will then experience stage 4 from 4pm until 12am.
On Tuesday, November 22, City of Cape Town customers will experience Stage 4 from 12am until 5am, then stage 1 from 5am until 4pm.
⚡️Load-shedding update - 20 November 2022
City customers
20 November
Stage 4: 17:00 - 00:00
21 November
Stage 4: 00:00 - 06:00
Stage 2: 06:00 - 16:00
Stage 4: 16:00 - 00:00
22 November
Stage 4: 00:00 - 05:00
Stage 1: 05:00 - 16:00
Stage 4: 16:00 - 00:00#CTInfo pic.twitter.com/lENZ5u53Hx