South Africa’s state power company Eskom has escalated load shedding from Stage 2 to Stage 4 from 9am on Wednesday
This comes as the embattled utility struggles with generation capacity after further failures of its generating units overnight.
The utility noted that overnight a unit each at Kendal, Duvha, Camden and Kusile power stations tripped.
Eskom confirmed in a statement, “Eskom would like to apologise for the implementation of load shedding, and will continuously review the situation and act appropriately as circumstances change,” end quote.
It further explained that “This being the fourth day of extremely high diesel usage, the emergency reserves are being depleted faster than can be replenished. Stage 4 load shedding will therefore give us the space required to replenish the emergency reserves and continue to manage the system safely.”
It appealed to South Africans to help it limit the impact of load shedding by reducing the usage of electricity and to switch off all non-essential items.