I’ve spent days trying to figure out the meaning of the various “Brown stages” on Eskom’s website. I think I have figured it out and it may help you to determine if and when your area will be left in the dark.
When you log onto Eskom’s website there will be a Load Shedding warning on the front page telling you what “Stage” we are in. Today, for example, there was a 1500Mw shortage so we’re in Stage 1. When the shortfall goes higher, we move up stages from Stage 1 to Stage 2 and then Stage 3, where 3 is the worst shortage and will affect the highest number of areas.
When you do a search for your area on Eskom’s site, you’ll see various “Stages” listed for your area (for e.g.: Brown Stage 1A or 1B, Stage 2A or 2B or Stage 3A or 3B.)
(Ed’s note: Make sure you use Internet Explorer because the Eskom site is not support other browsers like Firefox or Netscape)
Depending on how they classify the consumption of your area, you may fall into one, two or all three of these stages. So, depending on the alert status of the day “Stage 1, Stage 2 or Stage 3”), you can tell if your area will be hit with load-shedding by matching up the alert stage of the day and your area’s stage number.
Complicated, I know, but here’s an example to illustrate it:
Today’s Alert is Stage 1 (i.e. 1500Mw of shortfall). So, any area that is listed with Brown Stage 1A or 1B will be hit with load-shedding today. 2A, 2B, 3A and 3B need not worry because the shortage does not affect these areas yet.
If the shortage goes higher and the stage is increased to 2, then areas that are listed as 2A and 2B will be hit. And the same goes if we’re on alert stage 3 and all those 3A and 3B areas are going to be down.
Roodepoort, for example, is only on stage 2A and 2B so it will only be hit as and when the shortfall goes higher than 2000Mw.
But Rivonia, for example, is listed under 1A, 1B, 2A, 2B, 3A and 3B, which means that the area is almost guaranteed of having a power failure at least once a day, no matter how low the shortage may be.
From what I can see, Eskom classifies the areas as follows:
- 1A & 1B – High electricity consumption, first to be disconnected
- 2A & 2B – Medium consumption
- 3A & 3B – Low consumption – last to be disconnected
The higher the shortfall, the more people suffer and the more likely small “dorpies” (or stage 3 areas) will be hit in addition to major (stage 1) centres.
