Author: Staff Reporter

As Eskom shifted from stage 1 to stage 2 to stage 4 load shedding and then back to stage 2, then stage 3 this week, the impact on Johannesburg’s City Power grid has been chaotic.

Eskom will suspend load shedding at 8pm on Friday, but it will implement the rolling national blackouts at stage 1 on Saturday and Sunday evening “for a limited period”.

Eskom was forced to implement stage-4 load shedding at short notice on Wednesday, despite having cut the level of planned maintenance at its power stations to just 1.3GW.

Eskom is escalating load shedding to stage 4 on Wednesday, meaning it is cutting 4GW of supply from the grid, as it struggles with plant breakdowns.

Eskom has plunged South Africa back into stage-2 load shedding, with the rolling national blackouts set to continue until Sunday night.

Rolling power cuts are likely to continue all week as Eskom struggles to bring generating units back online, the state-owned power utility said on Monday.

While implementing countrywide blackouts this week, energy regulator Nersa has published for comment Eskom’s latest submission for additional revenue to be recovered from electricity tariffs.

Standard Bank has launched an online marketplace for larger companies, offering them a range of digital solutions. Called OneHub, it’s meant to act as a single point of entry for the bank’s corporate clients.

Logicalis, the IT services arm of JSE-listed technology multinational Datatec, said on Wednesday that it has acquired Siticom, a “network transformation and modernisation specialist”, for an undisclosed sum.

Stage-2 load shedding will return on Tuesday, Eskom said. The power cuts will start at 4pm and continue through the night, with a possibility that they’ll continue for the rest of the week.