The situation at Eskom seem to be hitting new lows every other week. The past two weeks has seen the energy utility reintroduce the public to candlelit dinners and days spent running up a sweat in the February summer heat with no fan or air-conditioning. Eskom surprised when it suddenly changed the advisory alert for load-shedding from stage 2 to stage 4. This caused huge alarms and upset many businesses, causing millions of rands in loss daily. While load-shedding is something we have become accustomed to, there’s are precautions we can take to make sure that we are at least prepared in the event of a shut-down.
The first thing we could check, is the load-shedding schedule as released by Eskom on their website – http://loadshedding.eskom.co.za/ . Here you can view municipal load-scheduling. You can also view the load-schedule alerts, and filter your specific area and view allocated time-slots.
But not everyone has access nor time to always check a website. This is where the success of a very cleverly named mobile application, EskomSePush, made quite a impact. It has seen the smart phone application shoot to number one in Google Playstore’s local app download chart as load shedding hit Stage 4 last week. The app sends notifications of potential and current load shedding statuses directly related to your area. If you have not yet heard about or installed the app, make sure to hurry over to your Google play store and download it to stay aware and ahead of load-shedding and make sure to be prepared for when the lights go out.
Other Apps worth mentioning is: