Rolling blackouts for South Africa as Eskom implements stage 5 load shedding

Power utility Eskom announced stage 5 load shedding from 10am on Tuesday.

In a short statement Eskom said this was due to the loss of four generation units overnight.

Stage 5 load shedding will be implemented until 4pm on Tuesday.

Eskom said it would update the public this afternoon.

On Sunday, Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa described last week’s Stage 6 load shedding as an extraordinary occurrence.

In a media briefing in Pretoria Ramokgopa predicted Stage 3 and 4 load shedding for this week.

He said there would be short term pain, but long term gain as they were not willing to compromise on maintenance programmes in order to keep the lights on.

“We are going to take the necessary measures to resolve load shedding. We are not going to take short-cuts to defeat load shedding,” he said.

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