It's now stage-4 load shedding until Friday

Eskom’s power supply crisis is intensifying. The state-owned power utility has announced stage-4 load shedding from 1pm on Monday until 5am on Friday, a dramatic escalation of the stage-2 cuts previously announced for this week.

“While Eskom regrets the escalation in load shedding, it is necessary to ration the remaining emergency generation reserves, which have been utilised extensively this morning as we are not getting the reduction in demand expected from the implementation of stage-2 load shedding,” the company said.

“It was anticipated that an additional seven units would have returned to service by Monday, and this has not materialised. Furthermore, a generating unit at the Arnot power station tripped this morning, contributing to the shortages.”

Eskom said total breakdowns now amount to 14.9GW of capacity, while planned maintenance is at 5.6GW.  – © 2021 NewsCentral Media