It’s back to Stage 2 load shedding throughout Saturday after brief stint of Stage 1
South Africa's longest run of planned power outages in over a decade continues.
Eskom announces load shedding. Cartoon: Bethuel Mangena /African News Agency (ANA)
Eskom has announced that Stage 2 load shedding will take place from 9am until 11pm on Saturday due to a “shortage of capacity”.
Saturday, 23 March 2019 : Stage 2 loadshedding from 09h00 until 23h00 due to a shortage of capacity. Please check your schedule at https://t.co/unEcYoeBK2
— Eskom Hld SOC Ltd (@Eskom_SA) March 23, 2019
On Friday night, Eskom shifted from Stage 2 rotational load shedding to Stage 1, only for Stage 2 to be reimplemented on Saturday morning.
“Load shedding is a highly controlled process, implemented to protect the system and to prevent a total collapse of the system or a national blackout. During Stage 4 loadshedding, approximately 80 percent of the country’s demand is still being met,” the power utility said.
“Eskom’s maintenance teams are working round the clock to return generation units to the electricity system. Stage 1 calls for 1,000MW, Stage 2 calls for 2,000MW, Stage 3 calls for 3,000MW, and Stage 4 calls for 4,000MW to be rotationally load shed nationally at a given period.”
Eskom appealed to customers to switch off geysers during the day as well as all non-essential lighting and electricity appliances to assist in reducing demand.
The power utility also reminded customers to treat all electrical points as live during load shedding.
“We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience during this difficult period.”
For more news your way, download The Citizen’s app for iOS and Android.
