It's getting darker: Eskom takes load shedding up to stage 4

Earlier, the power utility said its generating plants continued to perform at low levels of reliability, and its technical teams were unable to return units from planned and unplanned maintenance as scheduled.

JOHANNESBURG - Eskom has announced it will be implementing stage 4 load shedding from 2pm on Friday afternoon.

Earlier, the power utility said its generating plants continued to perform at low levels of reliability, and its technical teams were unable to return units from planned and unplanned maintenance as scheduled.

Eskom announced that stage 4 load shedding will be implemented countrywide, and will last until 6am on Saturday morning.

The power generator was forced to reintroduce load shedding on Thursday, citing a loss in generating capacity.

Spokesperson Dikatso Motae said: “The system is quite vulnerable, which is why even though when some units come back online, some are lost from the system. It’s quite vulnerable and we are basically in a worse situation currently.”