More Load Shedding expected this week

South Africans are frustrated by the news of more load shedding for the coming week. According to an alert sent out by the power utility Eskom yesterday, there will be load shedding for the most part of this week. This time, the power utility is blaming the lack of power on a neighbouring country.

According to Eskom, two lines went offline due to cyclone Idai, which hit parts of Mozambique.

Eskom said rotational load shedding will continue in an effort to build up the necessary water reserves in the pump storage scheme.

“Management of the diesel and water resources is essential to ensure the impact of the potential stages of load-shedding in the week ahead can be reduced,” said Eskom.

They said they were working with technicians in Mozambique to restore power to the power lines that had gone offline, cutting about 1 000 megawatts of power from the grid.

“Eskom is implementing stage 4 load shedding due to a loss of capacity which includes imports from Mozambique.

“At this stage, it appears unlikely that the imports from Mozambique will be restored in the next few days. We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience. We appeal to customers to switch off geysers during the day, as well as all non-essential lighting and electricity appliances to assist in reducing demand. Treat all electrical points as live during load shedding.”