Eskom announces longer load-shedding breaks for the weekend

Eskom has announced that it will extend the duration of its daily load-shedding breaks over the weekend of 27–28 January 2023.

Stage 1 load-shedding will continue to be in effect from 16:00 to 05:00 the following day and will be suspended between 05:00 and 16:00 on Saturday and Sunday.

“Due to the sustained performance of the generation fleet and the anticipated lower weekend electricity demand, stage 1 load-shedding is in force and will continue until 05:00 on Saturday, as previously communicated,” Eskom said in a brief statement on Friday.

“Thereafter, load-shedding will be suspended from 05:00 until 16:00 when stage 1 load-shedding will resume until 05:00 on Sunday.”

Eskom said this pattern of suspending load-shedding during the day and implementing stage 1 load-shedding in the evenings will repeat on Sunday.

The power utility operated a similar schedule during the week between Wednesday and Friday, except the daily load-shedding breaks were only six hours — from 10:00 to 16:00.

It also ran stage 2 power cuts in the evenings on Wednesday and Thursday.

“Eskom will provide the outlook for the week ahead on Sunday afternoon,” the power utility said.

Eskom’s weekend load-shedding timetable is summarised in the table below.