Eskom says Stage 3 load shedding will be implemented between the hours of 5am and 4pm, thereafter increasing to Stage 4 until 5am on Wednesday morning.

This after a tumultuous weekend for the power utility, where it was forced to implement load shedding despite, its suspension on Friday.

Eskom said its emergency generation reserves “are almost depleted” and load shedding is required to build up these reserves.

“During the weekend, the breakdown of a generating unit each at Duvha, Kriel and Medupi power stations, as well as the delayed returns of a generating unit each at Camden, Kusile, Komati and Kendal power stations have exacerbated current generation capacity shortages, forcing the escalation of load shedding.

“Eskom will publish a further update as soon as any significant changes occur,” the electricity supplier said.

By Sunday afternoon, Eskom said although some units had returned to service, at least 14 961MW of capacity unavailable due to breakdowns, with a further 6 004MW taken off for maintenance.

“Eskom teams have returned a generating unit each at Grootvlei, Hendrina, Majuba, Matla and Tutuka power stations to service. Load shedding is implemented only as a last resort in view of the shortage of generation capacity and the need to attend to breakdowns,” it said.

Source: South African Government News Agency