load reduction

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Will there be load shedding over Christmas? Here’s what you need to know

Eskom are struggling to keep the lights on in December, and people are concerned about Christmas Day: There are four key areas to consider here…

load reduction

Photo: Adobe Stock

If Eskom ruins our Christmas dinner, that’s it. We’ll be down at Medupi with our own hammers and chisels, ready to do something that should’ve been done a long time ago. Rotational load shedding schedules remain in place, just two weeks before the 25th – so can the utility be trusted to turn things around by then?

In a week which has seen the largest ever stage of load shedding unleashed on the South African public, trust in Eskom has hit rock-bottom. People want to know how their festive plans will hold up, as the power supply remains vulnerable in Mzansi.

Here’s what you need to know about the next fortnight:

Eskom: Will there be load shedding at Christmas?

Doubt caused by load shedding schedules

If you’ve been planning ahead this week, you – like many Twitter users – will have noticed that the Eskom load shedding schedule is in force right until the end of December. That includes Christmas Day.

However, at this moment in time, you can disregard the schedule for anything past the end of this week. The floods that have caused the majority of the damage are subsiding, and better weather is forecast for South Africa this week. Urgent repairs are underway at Medupi and Kriel.

Despite the “wet coal” situation still being an issue, we’re likely to see a decline in load shedding stages, rather than an increase. Small steps…

Eskom unable to plan so far in advance

As a general rule of thumb, Eskom are unable to comprehensively predict when they need to implement load shedding until two or three hours before the event. That’s why we end up with so many “surprise schedules” which seem to spring up from nowhere. So as it stands, no power cuts can be forecast for Christmas, because no one at the utility is able to look so far into the future.

Business break-up helps the grid

With workers traditionally breaking up on the last Friday before Christmas, this brings enormous respite to the electricity grid. Big businesses turn off the lights, and sprawling office spaces remain empty for days. This gives Eskom a little bit of breathing space over the festive season.

Former spokesperson Khulu Phasiwe explained this to us before he left his role with the company:

“Many people and industries close for the holidays. What we’ve seen over the years is that this lowers the demand for electricity and the system is much less constrained. Therefore, we’re highly likely to go through the holidays and right up until early January without load shedding, when demand is traditionally low.”

New year, same old s***

We were in this position almost one year ago to the day. Bouts of Stage 2 load shedding (oh, the luxury) hit the country just weeks before Christmas. The cuts eventually subsided, only to return with a vengeance in February – as predicted by Phasiwe in 2018.

In conclusion, we can say load shedding for Christmas Day this year is quite unlikely. But we can’t rule it out. It’s been a traumatic 48 hours or so for South Africa, and the recent technical issues ended up taking an unholy 15 000MW off the grid. A recovery in the next 15 days is odds-on, but is it a dead-cert? That’s has to be a “no”.

For those of you planning the Christmas dinner or a seasonal jol, you should be alright to go ahead. But make sure you’ve got a plan B in place. Get some turkey sarmies ready and waiting, and make sure there are some candles and matches in your kitchen drawers – just in case.