Eskom Extends Stage 2 Load Shedding Until Friday Morning

Eskom has announced that stage 2 load shedding will now continue until 6am on Friday.

The utility implemented stage two blackouts at 9pm on Wednesday night, which was expected to last until 8am, citing a loss to generation capacity.

It said that it had lost additional generating capacity overnight of over 14,000MW.

Eskom said that its emergency reserves were insufficient to meet the demand for electricity during the day.

The utility’s Dikatso Mothae: “Unfortunately, we lost additional generation capacity overnight and depleted our emergency reserve, so we have to continue with stage two load shedding.”

Eskom added that it could not predict at this stage whether load shedding would stretch into the weekend.

“It’s really quite difficult to give you a prognosis at this stage. The issue is that our system is quite unpredictable at the moment, so it makes it difficult for us to give you a prognosis for the rest of the week,” Mothae explained.

Eskom said that South Africans must remember that load shedding was an essential controlled measure to protect the power system from a complete collapse.

It said that that load shedding had been implemented at night so as not to disrupt the workday.

EWN