I’m kind of in two minds about this…
If the evening projection is for 6GW > what is available, you schedule Stage 6 loadshedding. You communicate this in advance, so people can plan.
However, if that evening suddenly demand is 6.5GW, you’re suddenly shedding 6.5GW, Stage 7, even though no more breakdowns or other outages have occurred.
And if the whole of Cape Town decides to turn on their geysers at 18:00, let’s say as part of an ill-advised protest or something, we’re suddenly at Stage 9?
Although it is technically true, it doesn’t help to reason about the system. So obviously their forecasting has to be accurate, otherwise they can cheat, but given that the data is openly available, I don’t think they did.
Unless you’re thinking Eskom should call a press conference to say “Listen, last night we were at Stage 7/8, but it’s over now, go about your business”? That doesn’t make sense either.