Neelam Rahim | neelam@radioislam.co.za

2-minute read
19 May 2023 | 19:20 CAT

South Africans may soon spend most of their day in darkness as Eskom has confirmed that a new national standards document proposes the provision of load-shedding schedules up to Stage 16. The power utility told MyBroadband this is to ensure that should load-shedding beyond Stage 8 become necessary, it is done in an orderly fashion. This has led to the popular app EskomSePush now here, preparing for Stage 16 loadshedding schedules. The app has become invaluable to millions of South Africans at a time when loadshedding stages are constantly changing.

The EskomSePush app has been running since 2014 and has become invaluable to millions of South Africans trying to navigate the constantly changing stages of loadshedding. Ordinary citizens already have to deal with a convoluted Eskom load-shedding schedule that changes on some days, even hourly.

Product Specialist at EskomSePush, Cathryn Reece, spoke to Radio Islam International about the necessary schedule changes to go beyond Stage 16. She said Eskom’s new national standards document proposes providing schedules of up to Stage 16 while the current plan goes up to Stage 8, which is intended to be the worst-case scenario.

According to Cape Talk, MyBroadband quotes Eskom as saying that “beyond Stage 8, the System Operator will instruct each province to reduce by a fixed [megawatt] amount.”

This reduction would be split between each province’s Eskom Distribution network owner and the municipal network owners.

Because there are no predefined schedules of how this additional reduction should be rotated, it’s proposed that schedules up to Stage 16 be accommodated “in order to make loadshedding systematic and orderly”.