Johannesburg - Struggling state power utility Eskom said on Friday it would cut up to 4 000 megawatts (MW) of power from the national grid on a rotational basis from 2 pm until 6 am on Saturday morning.
The utility had earlier said electricity shortages could worsen due to persistent rains which are causing coal-handling problems.
WHAT DOES STAGE 4 LOAD SHEDDING MEAN?
You will be scheduled for load shedding 12 times over a 4-day period for two hours at a time, or 12 times over an 8-day period for four hours at a time.If more load needs to be shed than has been scheduled in Stages 1, 2, 3 and 4 then National Control will instruct additional, unscheduled load shedding. This means you may be shed outside of your scheduled times.
To prevent a nationwide blackout, Eskom needs to maintain the national power grid at the international standard of 50Hz, and when the grid is under pressure with normal measures implemented, Eskom must reduce demand, as agreed with the National Energy Regulator (Nersa).
Eskom then implements a process of load reduction which has two components:
Load Curtailment - The utility can instruct industrial clients to reduce electricity consumption when it is urgent to balance the system. This can reduce the load by up to 20%, significantly easing capacity on the grid but it can take up to two hours to implement.
Load Shedding - Load curtailment fails to ease the demand on the system, or there is not enough time to notify industrial clients of the need to reduce their consumption, Eskom implements load shedding to prevent an imbalance and subsequent blackout.