South Africa announces stage 6 load shedding : This is what it means

This Is What Stage 6 Load Shedding Means For South Africans

South Africa particularly Eskom has been rolling out load shedding from the beginning of December.  Today, 9 December 2019, Eskom pulled a shocker and announced stage 6 load shedding effectively at 6 pm. The news caught the whole country off guard and it’s looking as if it’s going to be a real “candlelit  Christmas”.

Stage 5 and Stage 6 load shedding means shedding 5000 MW and 6000 MW respectively.

For businesses and residential consumers, it means more frequent cuts of the same duration, depending on where you live and who supplies your power. However, since load shedding is rotational, people were caught off guard because the current gazetted schedule only goes up to stage 5. Meaning you just have to wait and see when stage six will hit. It is also to be noted that this is the first time in South African history that stage 6 has had to be implemented. The power utility plant in Medupe was estimated to have cost in excess of 200 billion rands to construct but has failed miserably to sustain the country and a total shut down might be imminent. Earlier Eskom blamed the sudden load shedding on wet coal which they need to power the generators.

Social media was up in arms after the announcement. Black Twitter managed to find the humour in all this with some joking that stage 6 means Eskom staff will personally come to your house and switch off the candle.

The Eskom website had updated schedule times on their website at the time of going to press. Different municipalities around the country have also shared the updated schedules on their social media pages.

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