Eskom said it will cut 3GW of power from the South African grid from 8am until 11pm on Wednesday, marking the fourth consecutive day of such measures.
The state-owned power utility, which supplies more than 90% of the country’s electricity, is implementing the rolling blackouts due to a shortage of generating capacity, Eskom spokesman Khulu Phasiwe said via Twitter. Water and diesel emergency reserves are “still very low” and the nationwide strike that unions have planned for Wednesday may further impact operations, Eskom said in a statement late on Tuesday.
Maintenance workers brought online four generating units with a total capacity of 1.675GW on Tuesday, and are expected to bring back an additional 600MW on Wednesday, the utility said in the statement.
Eskom, which is projecting an annual loss of R20-billion and faces a debt burden of more than R400-billion, has been at the centre of a corruption scandal and identified as the single biggest risk to the South African economy. President Cyril Ramaphosa has said it will be split into three units in an attempt to rescue the utility. — Reported by Renee Bonorchis, with assistance from Dan Murtaugh and Jasmine Ng, (c) 2019 Bloomberg LP