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Eskom has announced that it will implement stage 4 load shedding on Monday evening.
Stage 4 load shedding will kick in from 17:00 until 22:00.
The embattled power utility had initially said stage 3 blackouts would be implemented on Monday and Tuesday. Thereafter, stage 2 was supposed to continue for the rest of the week, during the same time slots.
ALSO READ: Load shedding to continue for the rest of the week
But on Monday Eskom said stage 4 load shedding was precipitated by unit 2 at Kusile Power Station, which tripped earlier in the afternoon taking 720MW of generating capacity with it.
“While this unit has since returned to service, it will slowly load up to full capacity during the night. This added loss of capacity regretfully requires Eskom to increase load shedding to stage 4 from 17:00 until 22:00 tonight,” the parastatal said in a statement.
Speaking at a media briefing on Monday morning, Eskom COO Jan Oberholzer warned load shedding could be ramped up to stage 4 following a number of generator breakdowns.
“The outlook currently is that we will implement load shedding stage 3 today and tomorrow and stage 2 on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. But load shedding may be increased from stage 3 to stage 4.
“We are still going to be burning a lot of diesel and may be forced to implement load shedding throughout the day and not just in the evenings,” Oberholzer said.
READ MORE: Eskom warns that stage 4 load shedding could be on the cards
Stage 4 allows for up to 4,000MW of the national load to be shed.
Outages would be implemented 12 times over four days for two hours at a time, or 12 times over eight days for four hours at a time.
According to Eskom, on Monday morning a generating unit at Hendrina, Tutuka and Kriel power stations were returned to service while a unit each at Arnot Power Station was taken offline for repairs.
The power producer currently had 1 904MW on planned maintenance, while another 17 255MW of capacity was unavailable due to breakdowns.
Eskom said it would continue to closely monitor the system, adjust and communicate any changes as may be necessary.
“Eskom appeals to all South Africans to help limit the impact of load shedding by reducing the usage of electricity and to switch off all non-essential items.”
Compiled by Thapelo Lekabe. Additional reporting by Faizel Patel
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