Week of severe load shedding ahead – here’s the schedule

October 23, 2022 Siyabonga Mtangana

Eskom on Sunday pushed load shedding to stage 4 and warned of severe power cuts throughout the coming workweek as it struggles with continued breakdowns at its coal-fired power stations.

The state-owned utility pushed the rolling cuts to stage 4 at midday on Sunday and said load shedding will occur at either stage 3 or stage 4 for most of the week to come.

It said its emergency generation reserves — diesel for its open-cycle gas turbines and dams used in its pumped-storage schemes — were almost depleted on Sunday, necessitating the escalation in load shedding.

Also not helping were breakdowns of generating units at the Duvha, Kriel and Medupi power stations as well as delayed returns of units at Camden, Kusile, Komati and Kendal.