Friday, 7 March 2025 – South Africa’s power utility, Eskom, has announced the implementation of Stage 3 load shedding from 14:00 today until Monday, 10 March at 05:00. The decision follows the loss of 2,700MW in the past 14 hours, which has placed additional strain on the national grid.
According to Eskom, the power cuts were necessitated by several unexpected setbacks, including Koeberg Unit 2 being taken offline for maintenance after being brought back online just days ago, and operational issues at two Kusile units following adverse weather conditions.
Emergency Reserves Depleted
With an already constrained power system, Eskom has relied heavily on emergency reserves, which now need to be replenished over the weekend. The utility has assured the public that it is deploying additional engineering resources to expedite the repair of offline units, with expectations that at least 6,200MW will return to service by Monday’s evening peak.
Summer Outlook Remains Unchanged
Despite the current setback, Eskom reiterated its commitment to preventing a return to the extreme levels of load shedding experienced in 2023. The power utility remains focused on its Generation Recovery Plan, which has been in progress for two years.
Bheki Nxumalo, Eskom’s Group Executive for Generation, acknowledged delays in bringing certain units back online but assured the public that three long-term outage units will return to the grid in the coming weeks, adding 2,500MW to the system.
Eskom’s Progress in Reducing Load Shedding
Eskom’s leadership pointed to significant improvements in electricity availability over the past year. Dan Marokane, Eskom’s Chief Executive, highlighted that from 1 April 2024 to 27 February 2025, load shedding had been suspended for 325 days (7,871 hours), compared to just 32 days (2,103 hours) during the same period last year.
“We are focused on ensuring that we never return to the levels of load shedding seen in 2023,” said Nxumalo. “While we face challenges, we are deploying highly skilled engineering resources to address these issues and keep the grid stable.”
Eskom’s Commitment to Stability
While acknowledging the frustrations caused by load shedding, Marokane emphasized that deep maintenance and long-term planning are crucial to ending power cuts permanently. “Load shedding is a painful reminder of the past, but setbacks like this only reinforce our commitment to staying the course and ensuring a reliable power supply for South Africa.”
Eskom has urged the public to remain patient and assured that further updates will be provided as the situation evolves.
