Eskom ramps up load-shedding to stage 4

Eskom said on Monday it was ramping up the extent of its evening rolling electricity cuts,  which it has been applying daily for nearly a week, to stage 4, citing a further loss of generating capacity.

The beleaguered state-owned utility had said on Sunday it was only scaling up to stage 3 load-shedding on Monday and reducing that back to stage 2 for the rest of the week.

In its latest announcement, it said unit 2 of its Kusile power station had tripped earlier in the afternoon, taking 720 megawatts 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 5pm until10pm tonight. Eskom will continue to closely monitor the system, adjust and communicate any changes as may be necessary,” it added.