It seems like only yesterday that Eskom was announcing a return to Stage 2 load shedding. Because it was. The power “supplier” announced that thanks to breakdowns and planned maintenance, the country would be experiencing Stage 2 load shedding from 16:00 on Monday the 31at of May, to 5:00 this morning, the 1st of June. Now, Eskom’s made another announcement saying almost the same thing, with the added caveat that we should brace for load shedding for the rest of the week.

Eskom: The Dark Night Returns

“Due to further breakdowns of generating units… over the past 24 hours,” the announcement statement reads, “…Eskom regrets to inform the public that Stage 2 load shedding will be implemented starting at 16:00 this afternoon until 05:00 tomorrow morning.”

Further, the statement explains that, “…a generation unit each at Kusile and Arnot [has] returned to service,” but this, “is not sufficient to eliminate load shedding for the rest of the week.” Translations: you’ll probably want to keep your power banks charged.

Considering how similarly this reads to the last statement, it begs the question: why not just announce that we’re being load shed all week? That seems to be the implication here. If Eskom’s trying to soften the blow with daily reminders rather than admitting that this is a week-long (or longer) slam, it’s definitely missed the mark here.

Apparently, “breakdowns currently total 15 360MW of capacity,” 800MW more than they did in Eskom’s last statement. Bottom line is: things aren’t great power-wise right now, so keep your phones charged and have a few extra blankets on hand, because come rolling blackouts your heater isn’t going to be hugely useful.