Eskom to ditch load-shedding at 11pm — but it's back at 7am

Eskom will not implement load-shedding for eight hours, starting on Friday night.

The power utility reduced load-shedding to stage 3 from 2pm on Friday, and later announced that it would be terminating the rotational power cuts from 11pm. However, load-shedding will return at 7am on Saturday, at stage 2.

Eskom said this was due to a drop in demand going into the weekend.

“Tomorrow [Saturday] we will start implementing stage 2 load-shedding from 7am. We will keep the country informed of further developments,” Eskom said.

Meanwhile, the power utility said that Koeberg Unit 1 would be brought back onto the grid from Saturday morning — “a day earlier than initially expected”.

“This will help increase generation capacity and ease the scale of load-shedding,” Eskom said.

Unplanned breakdowns or outages were at 11,995MW as at 4.40pm  on Friday, and planned maintenance outages at 4,708MW.

“As the ageing fleet is currently constrained, unpredictable and vulnerable, we advise South Africans that the stage of load-shedding may change at short notice should there be any unexpected change in the generation system performance,” Eskom said.