In a last-minute announcement made on Tuesday night, Eskom said they would be switching to Stage 3 loadshedding from 5am Wednesday until 5am Friday.
The change just over a day after Eskom previously said that it would be going into Stage 4 for the rest of the week.
“The emergency generation reserves have showed significant progress over the past two days,” the power utility said.
From 5am Friday, Stage 2 will return until 5am Saturday.
At the beginning of the week, Eskom blamed the ongoing blackouts on breakdowns at its generation plants and higher than expected electricity usage by residents.
“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.”
As of Wednesday morning, Eskom said total breakdowns currently amounted to 12,709MW while planned maintenance is 6,164MW of capacity.
They urged South Africans to reduce their electricity consumption wherever possible in order to reduce pressure on the grid.
Eskom to reduce loadshedding to Stage 3 from 05:00 on Wednesday until Friday 05:00; thereafter Stage 2 loadshedding will be implemented as previously communicated until 05:00 on Saturday pic.twitter.com/g1SoSVTh8O
— Eskom Hld SOC Ltd (@Eskom_SA) November 9, 2021