Good news for Easter weekend load-shedding

Eskom hopes to keep load-shedding suspended until at least 16:00 on Easter Sunday, the state-owned power utility has announced.

“Due to the sustained available generation capacity and the planned return to service of 2,300MW of generation capacity by Friday, along with the anticipated low demand over the long weekend, load-shedding will remain suspended,” Eskom stated.

“Eskom will provide an update for the week ahead on Sunday afternoon or communicate should any significant changes occur.”

It said the evening peak demand for tonight is projected to be 27,465MW.

Eskom’s update comes after load-shedding schedule app EskomSePush’s reported that power cuts would remain suspended until after the long weekend.

The official update from the power utility came about an hour later and was more conservative, not promising load-shedding relief for Easter Monday.

Eskom suspended load-shedding at 16:00 yesterday, with the power utility promising to provide an update on Wednesday afternoon.

It was able to suspend load-shedding due to the return of six generating units, Eskom said.

The respite followed two days of a rotation between stage 2 and no load-shedding since Sunday, 24 March.

Before that, Eskom implemented load-shedding over the long weekend despite announcing plans to suspend power cuts on Wednesday, 20 March.

It was forced to implement stage 3 load-shedding from 20:00 on Thursday, 21 March. It didn’t provide a reason for the increase at the time.

On Friday, 22 March, the power utility announced that it would implement a rotation of stage 2 power cuts during the day and stage 3 overnight.

It said this was necessary to replenish the emergency reserves in preparation for the week ahead and due to the loss of three generating units.