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.
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President Cyril Ramaphosa on Thursday moved to deal with the electricity supply crisis harming the South African economy by lifting the limit on self-generation of power to 100MW.
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 has implemented stage-3 load shedding due to further breakdowns at the Kusile, Matla and Tutuka power stations.
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.
Johannesburg plans to seek at least R3.8-billion in investment in solar and gas-fired power as well as battery storage to improve electricity supply.
Eskom said it will suspend load shedding for five hours on Friday afternoon to allow MPs to attend a virtual sitting of parliament. As a result, power cuts will continue all weekend.
Mineral resources & energy minister Gwede Mantashe and the two most senior officials in his department denied corruption in court papers responding to allegations by a losing bidder in a power tender.