Durban – There will be no reprieve from load shedding this week. In fact, South Africans should prepare themselves for high stages of load shedding, starting this afternoon.
Eskom has announced that Stage 5 load shedding will be implemented from noon today until 9pm tonight when Stage 6 load shedding kicks in.
Stage 6 load shedding will continue until 5am tomorrow before moving to Stage 5.
According to Eskom: “Stage 5 load shedding will then be implemented continuously from 5am on Wednesday until further notice.”
Eskom said today that it was forced to implement the higher load-shedding stages because six generating units had broken down.
“Duvha and Hendrina have not yet returned to service. In addition, a generating unit each at Matla and Arnot had been returned to service. There is a delay in returning a generating unit each at Duvha, Kendal, Grootvlei, and Kriel power stations,” Eskom said.
The news comes against the backdrop of an increasingly flailing economy, with the South African Reserve Bank saying this week that the ongoing electricity supply challenges were expected to shrink economic growth to a paltry 0.3% this year, which could result in job losses.
In addition, under-pressure South Africans are not only facing electricity supply shortages but escalating energy prices as Eskom has been granted permission to impose an 18.65% tariff increase from April 1 this year.
Video: African News Agency (ANA)
The governing ANC, which is facing growing anger from the public in the face of the energy crisis, has indicated to that it would move Cyril Ramaphosa’s administration to declare a national State of Disaster at the struggling power utility in a bid to end the energy crisis.
This was announced was by President Ramaphosa at the conclusion of the ANC National Executive Committee lekgotla in Kempton Park on Monday night.
“There is clear direction from the lekgotla that we must resolve the immediate task of load shedding within a much shorter time frame than what has been projected, and have set out the actions to achieve that.
“There was talk about a National State of Disaster, like what we did when we faced Covid-19, and there is broad agreement that we should proceed in that direction,” Ramaphosa said.
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