Stage 6 load-shedding to continue, with Eskom saying it will take time to recover from strike action

Eskom on Sunday announced that stage 6 load-shedding would continue into the new week. 

In a media statement, the power provider said this was linked to last week's unprotected strike action by its workers at plants across the country. Workers were demanding a wage hike. 

“Eskom cautions the public that it will still take a few weeks for the power generation system to fully recover to pre-strike levels,” Eskom said. 

It thanked employees who had since returned to work.

“Depending on several possibilities — including the workforce fully returning to work to conduct much needed repairs to equipment — it is anticipated that load-shedding will gradually be lowered to stage 2 by the weekend,” it added. 

Eskom was expected to continue with stage 4 until midnight on Sunday and thereafter enforce stage 2 until 5am. Stage 4 will be implemented from 5am until 4pm and then stage 6 until 10pm. From 10pm until midnight, stage 4 will be rolled out again. 

The same was expected on Tuesday. 

Eskom said it currently had 3,384MW on planned maintenance while 18,319MW of capacity was unavailable due to breakdowns.   

The power utility reminded consumers it implemented load-shedding as a last resort to protect the national grid. It called on consumers to continue to use electricity sparingly. 

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