Load shedding schedules explained: how to read them and plan around them

Load shedding is the one South African schedule that affects almost every household and business, and it is also the one most commonly misread. The two things that cause confusion are the relationship between stages and slots, and the difference between load shedding and a fault.

Stages, and what they actually change

The stage number indicates how much demand must be removed from the grid, in steps of roughly 1 000 MW. A higher stage means more load is removed, which in practice means:

• more blocks are shed at the same time, and
• each block is shed more often across a 24-hour cycle.

The stage does not tell you how many times your own block will be off. That depends on your municipality’s schedule, which assigns slots to each block.

Stage	Practical effect on an area
Stage 1	Fewest slots; some blocks may not be affected at all
Stage 2	Most blocks shed, typically two to three times a day
Stage 3–4	More frequent and often longer slots
Stage 5–6	Most of a municipality’s capacity rotated aggressively
Above 6	Rare; significant economic disruption

Why your neighbour has different times

Municipalities divide their networks into blocks - sometimes a dozen, sometimes more - and publish a schedule per block. Two suburbs a street apart can sit on different blocks with different slots.

That is why the schedule lookup asks for your suburb or your meter number rather than your street address, and why a neighbour’s list of times is not evidence about yours.

Load shedding versus a fault

This distinction matters because the remedy is different:

	Load shedding	Fault
Scheduled	Yes, published in advance	No
Area affected	All blocks according to the schedule	Usually smaller, sometimes a single street
Remedy	Wait	Report it to the municipality - it will not self-resolve
Common causes	Grid capacity	Cable theft, transformer failure, overload

A prolonged outage outside the schedule is almost always a fault, and faults caused by cable theft or overloaded transformers do not fix themselves. Report it through the municipality’s own channel and get a reference number.

What nobody can tell you

No website can tell you when load shedding will end, how long a stage will last, or what the stage will be next month. The position depends on unplanned breakdowns, planned maintenance and demand, and it is announced on the day.

Any page offering a countdown to the end of load shedding is guessing and dressing it up as information. We do not publish predictions, and we do not record a stage as a date record, because it is not a date - it is a live operating condition.

Protecting a household

• Surge protection at the board where possible, and surge-protected plugs for electronics.
• Switch off sensitive equipment - computers, televisions, decoders - rather than relying on standby, and unplug during an extended outage.
• Keep the fridge and freezer closed. A full freezer holds temperature for many hours if the door stays shut.
• Charge what matters - phones, power banks, and any medical device, with a plan for longer outages.
• Use a light that survives an outage in a fixed place, so nobody is looking for a torch in the dark.

Protecting a business

Businesses face three problems: equipment damage, lost trading time and cold-chain or process risk.

• Plan production around the schedule rather than discovering the outage.
• Get backup power sized for what actually needs it - the till, the network, the lights and the fridge rather than everything.
• Test the changeover under load, not in theory. An inverter that cannot start a motor is a common and avoidable failure.
• Communicate with customers. A posted schedule of your own opening arrangements prevents a great deal of frustration.

When the meter is the problem

Prepaid meters bring their own failure modes during load shedding - tokens that do not load, meters that do not reconnect when power returns, and purchases that do not reach the meter. The prepaid meter problems guide covers what to do about each.

Last reviewed 13 October 2026. Schedules are published by Eskom and by each municipal distributor, and the stage is announced on the day. Confirm the current position with your own distributor.