South Africans should brace for prolonged and even severe power cuts from this week as Eskom has warned of “some risks” ahead.
This follows a “very difficult week” during which Eskom shed and curtailed a combined more than 7 000MW for two consecutive nights during evening peak hours to protect the national grid from collapsing.
By Sunday, stage 6 load shedding was reduced to stage 4, a welcome reprieve and despite the power utility on Friday saying that stage 6 load shedding would be implemented continuously until further notice due to the breakdowns of a number of generation units.
Eskom’s head of generation, Thomas Conradie, said on Friday the ongoing high levels of unplanned breakdowns had posed a serious risk of pushing load shedding to stage 8.