Icy weather bites Eskom too as load-shedding ramped to stage 4 from 1pm

As the cold weather and snow batters most parts of South Africa, Eskom has added to the woes with the announcement of stage 4 load-shedding from 1pm.

In a brief statement issued shortly before stage 4 kicked in, Eskom said: “Due to high demand and a slight reduction in generation capacity, stage 4 load-shedding will be implemented at 1pm today [Monday] until 5am on Tuesday.

“Eskom will publish an update shortly. We plead with the public to switch off non-essential appliances to reduce demand.”

The embattled entity had initially announced it would continue the trend of suspending power cuts between 12am and 4pm this week due to “consistent available generation capacity”.

An optimistic electricity minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa told South Africans it was “unlikely” plummeting temperatures would impact on the severity of load-shedding. 

He insisted at his Sunday briefing providing an update on the implementation of the Energy Action plan that there was enough “leeway in the system to deal with peak weather patterns”.

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