Eskom will continue implementing rotational blackouts on Friday as it struggles with electricity generation problems at several of its plants.

The state-owned monopoly introduced load shedding for the first time in 28 days on Thursday and warned it could last until at least the end of the weekend.

The planned power cuts on Friday come despite Eskom successfully returning four generation units to service on Thursday.

This, it said, was “not sufficient to stave off load shedding at this point”.

“Eskom will therefore continue to implement stage-2 load shedding until 10pm tonight. Stage-2 load shedding with resume again at 8am until 10pm tomorrow.”

It blamed an increase in plant breakdowns for the latest round of cuts. It said staying on stage 2 on Thursday evening and into Friday will help it preserve emergency generation reserves, namely diesel and water.

“Breakdowns this week have removed more than 13.5GW of capacity from the system, while planned maintenance stands at 5GW of infrastructure.”  — (c) 2020 NewsCentral Media