South Africa’s state power utility Eskom said on Thursday they will implement stage 3 load-shedding on Friday from 8 a.m. local time (0600 GMT) due to lower demand and much-improved weather.
Eskom ramped up power cuts to stage 4 on Wednesday because of exceptionally high demands and breakdowns at its coal-fired power stations, but from 8 a.m. (0600 GMT) to 10 p.m. (2000GMT) on Friday, it will reduce the cuts to stage 3, which requires up to 3,000 megawatts to be shed from the grid.
“The system remains unreliable and vulnerable and Eskom will continue to communicate the stage of load-shedding should there be any further developments,” Eskom said in a statement.
The load-shedding will continue into the weekend in order to replenish the emergency generation reserves, Eskom said as they urged citizens to reduce electricity usage in order to assist the power utility to limit load-shedding.
(input from agencies)
