Load-shedding increased to 19-hours on Thursday, Eskom says
Load-shedding may continue into the weekend if there are further delays or breakdowns
Stage 2 load-shedding will be implemented from 5am on Thursday and increased to stage 4 from 4pm to midnight due to the continued shortage of generation capacity, Eskom said in a statement on Wednesday.
The utility said there has been a delay in returning a generation unit each to service at Arnot, Koeberg and the Kusile power stations, as well as the unplanned outage of a generation unit each at Camden, Medupi and two units each at Grootvlei, Hendrina and Majuba power stations, that have worsened the capacity constraints.
Some generation units are expected to return to service over the next few days. Unit 2 at Koeberg is expected to return to service on Friday night, but any further delays or unit breakdowns may extend load-shedding into the weekend.
Eskom currently has 2,931MW on planned maintenance, while another 15,040MW of capacity is unavailable due to breakdowns.
Updated: August 3 2022
This article has been updated with new information