‘Is this a joke?’ — SA fumes as load-shedding is ramped up to stage 4
You are going to face more dark days and nights after Eskom announced it is ramping up load-shedding to stage 4 from 9am on Wednesday.
The power utility said the move to stage 4 was due to further failures of generation units.
Eskom spokesperson Sikonathi Mantshantsha said a unit each at Kendal, Duvha, Camden and Kusile power stations tripped overnight.
“Since then, we have returned four units to service. However, these units need to ramp up to full output, which necessitates a high use 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,” said Mantshantsha.
“Stage 4 load-shedding will be implemented from 9am today until 5am on Friday to manage the emergency reserve.”
Stage 2 will resume on Friday until 5am on Monday morning.
South Africans were already in the grip of stage 2 load-shedding from Monday afternoon. This was set to end on Saturday.
“Eskom would like to apologise for the implementation of load-shedding, and will continuously review the situation and act appropriately as circumstances change,” Mantshantsha said.
The apology was hardly accepted, as South Africans flooded social media to vent their frustration about the rolling blackouts.