Eskom announced on Wednesday morning that stage 4 load shedding will be implemented from 09:00.

This will continue until Friday morning at 05:00. Thereafter load shedding will be lowered to stage 2 until Monday morning at 05:00.

“Eskom would like to apologise for the implementation of load shedding, and will continuously review the situation and act appropriately as circumstances change,” the power utility said in a media statement on Wednesday morning.

#POWERALERT1

Due to further failures of generation units, Stage 4 loadshedding will be implemented from 09:00 today until 05:00 on Friday in order to manage the emergency reserves pic.twitter.com/OMmqjLKIUX

— Eskom Hld SOC Ltd (@Eskom_SA) March 9, 2022

“Overnight a unit each at Kendal, Duvha, Camden and Kusile power stations tripped. Since then, we have returned four units to service. However, these units still need to ramp up to full output, which necessitates a high usage of emergency generation reserves today. This being the fourth day of extremely high diesel usage, the emergency reserves are being depleted faster than can be replenished.”

Eskom said stage 4 load shedding will give them the time required to replenish the emergency reserves and continue to manage the system safely.

“Total breakdowns amount to 15 439MW while planned maintenance is 5 505MW of capacity.”

Eskom asked South Africans to limit the impact of load shedding by reducing the usage of electricity and to switch off all non-essential items.

“We will communicate promptly should there be any significant changes to the power system.”