Brace yourself South Africa, According to Chief Executive Officer of Eskom Andre De Ruyter – It is hard to say when enough generating capacity will be available, as he said in a statement: “It is difficult for me to commit to a timeline… we certainly are working on a very well developed program, we are going to the board next week to get approval and once that is done, we will be able to start our communication process. But we do expect that there will be a period of 18 to 24 months when there will be some form of interruption in supply in order for us to rebuild capacity and keep South Africa consistently supplies with electricity”.
Late last year, South Africa saw the unforeseen implementation of stage 6 load shedding. The chairperson of Eskom Jabu Mabuza attributed the current crisis at Eskom to poor maintenance.
“Some of the reason we find ourselves where we are today is owing to maintenance not being done” he said.
The public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan on his hand sees the situation manageable. “It is not a bug crisis, it is something we are managing” said Pravin Gordhan.
The year 2019 was the worst year of load shedding according to a report by the council for specific and industrial research (CSIR).
In 2019 load shedding cost South Africa between R60 billion and R120 billion.
The total economic impact of load shedding over the past 10 years, could be a high as R338 billion.
How Load shedding affects you
- Stage 1: Requires the least amount of the load shedding (Up to 1,000 MW) and can be implemented three times over a four-day period for two hours at a time, or three times over an eight-day period for 4 hours at a time.
- Stage 2: Will double the frequency of the stage 1, which means you will be scheduled for load shedding six times over a four-day period for two hours at a time, or six times over an eight-day period for four hours at a time.
- Stage 3: Will increase the frequency of the stage 2 by 50 percent, which means you will be scheduled of load shedding nine times over a four-day period for two hours at a time, or nine times over an eight day period for four hours at a time.
- Stage 4: Will double the frequency of the stage 2, which means you will be scheduled for load shedding 12 times over a four-day period for two hours at a time, or 12 times over an eight-day period for four hours at a time.