Eskom Announces an Evening of Loadshedding for South Africans

Eskom has announced that it will implement Stage 2 load shedding from 5pm to 10pm this evening (Monday 30 May), due to losing generation units at the Majuba and Medupi power stations today.

However, the power utility expects more units to return to service overnight so tomorrow should look ‘brighter’.

“Three generation units are expected to return to service by this evening which will ramp up through the night,” Eskom said in a statement on Monday.

The state-owned entity appealed again to South Africans to limit the impact of power cuts by reducing their usage of electricity and switching off all non-essential items.

Eskom had suspended load shedding on Sunday morning after what it called a “marginal improvement in the generation capacity”.

By Monday afternoon, the power utility was facing a shortage of at least 15 847MW in generation capacity due to breakdowns with a further 2246MW out on planned maintenance.

“Eskom cautions the public that as the shortage of generation capacity persists, the system will continue to be constrained with an elevated risk of load shedding over the coming weeks.

“We would like to remind the public that load shedding is implemented only as a last resort to protect the national grid. We therefore urge all South Africans to continue using electricity sparingly especially between 5am [and] 9am in the mornings and 4pm to 10pm in the evenings,” Eskom said. – SAnews.gov.za