South Africans should brace for stage one load shedding, which Eskom would start implementing from 5pm today.
The load shedding would last until 10pm, Eskom said in a statement.
“This is due to a shortage of generation capacity as several units are currently out of service due to maintenance,” the power utility said.
“Because of maintenance, the system will not be able to meet 1 000MW of demand, meaning that although certain areas will be without electricity for a certain period, about 96 percent of South Africans will still continue to receive power supply at the same time.”
The announcement came after new Eskom acting chief executive officer Brian Molefe appealed to people “not beat up Eskom”.
Molefe briefed MPs in Parliament about loadshedding and the financial problems facing the electricity supplier.
“On a typical week during stage 3 load shedding…I’m told that a typical family will not have electricity for 10 hours in a week,” Molefe said.
“For 158 of the 168 hours Eskom does not provide electricity.”
He said this meant that 90 percent of the time Eskom was producing electricity.
Eskom would now try and find 3000 megawatts of electricity – the average shortfall in power the grid experienced on a daily basis – before the end of the year.
ANA