Dark weekend as Eskom implements stage 3 load-shedding
In an effort to replenish its reserves, Eskom will be implementing stage 3 power cuts from Friday evening up until Monday morning.
Eskom has announced that it will be implementing Stage 3 loadshedding from 14:00 today, which is expected to last until Monday, March 10 at 05:00.
The power utility indicated a loss of 2700MW of power over the past 14 hours, combined with ongoing high levels of planned maintenance, as the reason for the loadshedding.
Eskom said that the Stage 3 loadshedding is necessary to replenish emergency reserves over the weekend.
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“We reiterate our commitment to ensuring that South Africa is in no way returning to the levels of load shedding that we experienced in 2023. Two years into delivering the generation recovery plan that will bring an end to load shedding, we are at a challenging time and the full force of our highly skilled engineering resources are deployed and focused,” said Bheki Nxumalo, the group executive generation of the power utility.
“We have had some delays in returning units that previously tripped back to the grid, as well as to the return of three units that have been on long-term outage that will bring back 2500MW to the grid, which will happen over the coming weeks.”
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Nxumalo added that Eskom apologises for this temporary setback.
“We have to keep our focus on intensive maintenance as evidenced by year to date (1 April 2024 to 27 February 2025) load shedding that was suspended for 325 days (7 871 hours), compared to 32 days (2 103 hours) in the same period last, that was a result of the deep maintenance we did in summer 2023/2024.”
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