Despite promises to keep the lights on for longer, Eskom has once again announced more load shedding in the days to come.
On Tuesday, the utility's crisis manager Menzi Mngomezulu, said Stage 2 load shedding will be implemented from 9am until 4pm on Tuesday.
“Thereafter, Stage 3 load shedding will be implemented from 4pm until 5am on Wednesday, followed by Stage 2 load shedding until 4pm,” he said.
“This pattern of implementing Stage 2 load shedding in the morning and Stage 3 load shedding in the evening will be repeated daily until further notice.”
He explained that the imminent forced shutdown of two generating units on Tuesday.
In its Summer Outlook released in September, Eskom painted a picture of less or lower levels of load shedding towards the end of 2023, into the new year.
At the time, IOL reported that Eskom's group executive for transmission Segomoco Scheppers, explained that the summer outlook forecasts three unplanned losses scenarios of 14,500MW, 16,000MW and 17,500MW.
Tuesday's alert continues the pattern of alternating between Stages 2 and 3.
At the weekend, Eskom said unplanned outages are currently at 16,264MW of generating capacity including delays at the Lethabo power station.
Meanwhile, the rolling power outages continue to impact on the local economy.
Last week, the Motor Industry Staff Association (Misa) called for a drop in interest rates to help the economy.
“The disposable income of consumers are absorbed by the impact of load shedding, fuel prices, food prices, inflation and interest rates,” said Misa's Martlé Keyter.
“The amount of consumers who had cash available to spend on vehicles, or on the maintenance of their vehicles, rapidly declined. Consumers who have to rely on financing, struggle with bad credit ratings because of all their debt.”
IOL