Eskom said it will reduce load shedding to Stage 4 from midday on Sunday.

Eskom said Stage 4 will kick in from 12:00 on Sunday to 05:00 on Monday, thereafter, Stage 3 and 4 will alternate until Thursday.

Following a week of stage six load shedding, Eskom said breakdowns of its generating units have decreased allowing for the utility to downgrade the rolling power cuts to stage four.

Eskom’s Daphne Mokwena:

“Stage 3 load shedding will be implemented from 05:00 until 16:00 on Monday, followed by Stage 4 load shedding from 16:00 until 05:00 on Tuesday. This pattern of implementing Stage 3 load shedding in the morning and Stage 4 load shedding in the evening will be repeated daily until Thursday.”

Mokwena said some units are expected to return to service on Tuesday.

TWO-HOUR LOAD SHEDDING INTERVALS

Meanwhile, City Power said it’s implementing load shedding at two-hour intervals throughout the metro, instead of implementing 4-hour bouts of load shedding when it’s Stage 6.

The utility took over the implementation of the rolling power cuts at the beginning of November.

The utility said not only will this be beneficial to residents to recharge devices and complete other tasks it will also help curb theft and vandalism of infrastructure that happens during prolonged load shedding.

“Previously during Stage 6, we encountered high cases of cable theft and vandalism. Almost after every four hours a case of theft, vandalism and cable fault would be reported. This is because criminals have sufficient time to basically dig and cut as much cable as is possible during that time,” said spokesperson Isaac Mangena.