South Africa's electricity utility Eskom said on Thursday it would resume rotational power cuts from 9 am after a few days' reprieve and this would likely continue over the weekend.
Eskom, which supplies about 95 percent of the country's electricity, has been forced to intermittently apply load-shedding for months, suppressing demand to avoid overwhelming the grid in the face of frequent breakdowns in its generating units.
"We regret that Stage 2 rotational load-shedding will be implemented from 09:00 today until 06:00 on Saturday owing to the loss of 3 additional units overnight that has increased the shortage in capacity," it said on Thursday.
"There is a high probability that load-shedding will continue over the weekend, as there is a need to replenish reserves for the coming week."
The utility said it was currently utilising emergency reserves to supplement the shortage in capacity and reiterated that there was a possibility of increased load-shedding over the next 18 months as it conducted critical maintenance to restore its ageing plants to good health.
Eskom usually implements stage 2 load-shedding which requires throttling 2 000 megawatts of demand at any given time, but scaled this up to an unprecedented "stage 6" one day last year as pressure on the grid spiked.
EMAIL THIS ARTICLE SAVE THIS ARTICLE
To subscribe email subscriptions@creamermedia.co.za or click here
To advertise email advertising@creamermedia.co.za or click here