Eskom has announced that it will implement stage two load shedding from this morning until Saturday morning.

This as the power utility continues to struggle to build up its emergency reserves following rolling blackouts over the weekend and on Monday evening.

Eskom said although much work had been done to replenish its capacity, delays hampered the suspension of the rolling blackouts.

“While Eskom teams have successfully returned a unit each at the Kusile, Matimba and Arnot power stations during the early hours of this morning, further delays in returning other units to service have exacerbated the capacity constraints, hampering the ability to replenish the emergency generation reserves,” Eskom said.

The entity said that it expects more generation units to return to service during the week.

“Eskom anticipates to return Koeberg Unit 1 to service during the weekend. Eskom also expects to return five other units to service during the week. However, there are number of generation units running with risk of failure that cannot be attended to at the moment due to the current capacity constraints.”

On Monday, Eskom Chief Operating Officer Jan Oberholzer said despite challenges, the power utility expects to keep the lights on during the local government elections on 1 November.

Source: South African Government News Agency