“The risk of power outages is high and we ask all South Africans to switch off all non-essential electrical equipment especially between 5pm and 9pm,” reads the Eskom website.
This after the power utility was forced to resort to nationwide load shedding on Wednesday night.
“Due to the unavailability of some of our generators, we are implementing load shedding for an hour,” said spokesman, Andrew Etzinger, on Wednesday evening.
Click here to view the Loading shedding schedule for Springs
Etzinger said two units at the Duvha and Kendal power stations had tripped and a portion of the capacity, usually imported from Cahora Bassa, a hydroelectric station in Mozambique, became unavailable.
Eskom warned South Africa’s power grid will remain severely constrained on Thursday and called on consumers to delay the usage of heaters and to switch off geysers, pool pumps and all non-essential appliances between 5.30pm and 6.30pm.
“Eskom will utilise all necessary emergency resources at its disposal but should the demand not decrease, load shedding will be implemented as a last resort to protect the national grid.”
In the event that load-shedding becomes necessary, Eskom will use the published load shedding schedules which are available on the Eskom website for Eskom customers. Eskom customers can also contact Eskom’s customer call centre 0860 037 566.
