Emergency at Eskom: stage-4 cuts implemented

Eskom suddenly escalated load shedding to stage 4 on Monday morning after the state-owned electricity utility lost more generating units from its fleet.

“Regretfully, Eskom has just been forced to implement stage-4 load shedding at 7.20am following Majuba unit 5 and Tutuka unit 4 tripping. A full statement will be published in due course,” the company said on Twitter.

This comes after Eskom’s unprecedented decision to cut the power, at stage 2, on Easter Sunday, when demand from electricity users is low.

This decision came after Eskom disclosed that more than 17GW of generating capacity was unavailable due to unplanned breakdowns. Together with stations that were down for planned maintenance (5.5GW), this meant more than half of Eskom’s total generating capacity was offline as of Sunday afternoon.  – © 2022 NewsCentral Media