South Africa will be returning to Stage 4 loadshedding until 5am Friday, Eskom announced in a statement on Monday.
According to Eskom, Stage 4 will be in place until Friday morning, at which point it will go back to Stage 2 until 5am Saturday.
“While Eskom regrets the escalation in loadshedding, it is necessary to ration the remaining emergency generation reserves, which have been utilised extensively this [Monday] morning as we are not getting the reduction in demand as expected from the implementation of Stage 2 loadshedding,” the power utility said.
“It was anticipated an additional seven units would have returned to service by Monday, and this has not materialised. Further, a generating unit at Arnot power station tripped this morning, contributing to the shortages.
“Total breakdowns currently amount to 14,874MW while planned maintenance is 5,579MW of capacity.”
Eskom urged South Africans to reduce their electricity consumption wherever possible in order to reduce pressure on the grid.
Stage 4 loadshedding will be implemented from 13:00 until 05:00 on Friday; thereafter Stage 2 loadshedding will be implemented as previously communicated until 05:00 on Saturday pic.twitter.com/T2PRhEOaTm
— Eskom Hld SOC Ltd (@Eskom_SA) November 8, 2021
