Rolling blackouts expected this weekend, says Eskom

South Africans can expect rolling blackouts over the weekend after Eskom, the state-owned power utility, said it had depleted its reserves because of extended plant breakdowns.

In a statement, Eskom group chief executive Dan Marokane said that after more than 10 months of uninterrupted electricity supply due to the success of the generation recovery plan, Eskom had issued an alert indicating a high risk of load shedding at short notice.

“This is a potentially temporary setback. Load shedding is largely behind us due to the structural improvements in our generation fleet,” he said, adding that over the past seven days, Eskom had experienced several breakdowns that required extended repair times.

“This has necessitated the use of all our emergency reserves, which now need to be replenished. Consequently, we are closely monitoring the status of our current emergency reserves, and load shedding up to Stage 4 may be implemented over the weekend,” he said