Eskom suspends load-shedding for 18 more hours

Eskom has announced that it will suspend load-shedding again at 22:00 on Saturday, 16 September 2023.

The rotational power cuts will remain suspended for 18 hours and resume at Stage 3 from 16:00 on Sunday, 17 September.

“Due to lower than anticipated demand, load-shedding will be suspended from 22:00 tonight. Stage 3 load-shedding will be implemented from 16:00 on Sunday until 05:00 on Monday,” Eskom said.

The state-owned power utility said it would publish an update for the week on Sunday.

This follows Eskom suspending load-shedding at 11:00 on Saturday. It said power cuts would resume at Stage 3 from 16:00.

However, whether Eskom implemented Stage 3 load-shedding on Saturday afternoon is unclear.

“Due to further improvement in generation capacity, load-shedding will be suspended from 11:00 today until 16:00. Stage 3 load-shedding will resume from 16:00 today until 05:00 on Sunday,” it said.

Eskom’s suspension and reduction of power cuts in the past few days is a sharp turnaround, considering the power utility recently asked households to reduce their electricity consumption to prevent load-shedding higher than Stage 6.

At the time, South African residents faced continuous Stage 6 load-shedding.

The power utility asked homeowners to switch off non-essential appliances, including geysers, swimming pool pumps, and electric heaters, to help reduce demand.

“The reduction will continue to assist in alleviating pressure on the system and avoid higher stages of load-shedding,” it said.

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