South Africa’s power utility, Eskom, has announced that it will cut 3,000 megawatts of power in controlled outages, known locally as load-shedding, from 5:30 pm (15:30 GMT) on Saturday until further notice, following a temporary setback.
At the end of January, Eskom implemented similar power cuts after 10 months of uninterrupted supply, as the utility strives to overcome chronic outages that have hindered economic growth for years.
In a statement, Eskom said it would provide an update on Sunday but did not specify the cause of the latest setback.
It is understood that frequent breakdowns at Eskom’s fleet of ageing coal-fired power plants, which supply the majority of electricity in Africa’s most industrialised economy, are often the reason for load-shedding.
Load-shedding is managed in stages, with stage 1 cutting 1,000 MW from the national grid, and stage 6 being the highest implemented to date.
