Struggling state-owned power utility Eskom has spoilt the Black Friday weekend by plunging the country into stage-six loadshedding.
The entity announced on Friday that stage-six loadshedding will kick in at midday, resulting in households and businesses being subjected to extended periods of up to four consecutive hours of power cuts.
This means households and business will not have power for up eight hours a day.
“It is with great regret that due to the shortage of generating capacity and emergency reserves, stage-six loadshedding will be implemented from 12pm today until 5am on Monday,” said Eskom in a statement.
The state-owned entity said it will publish a further communication later in the day while it continues to closely monitor the power system.
The prolonged period of loadshedding comes after Eskom revealed in its 2022/2023 annual report recently that it had plunged the country into 280 days of loadshedding during the financial year period which ended in March.
Irregular expenditure
The report also shows that Eskom had incurred R91.1-billion in irregular expenditure during the financial period.
Former Eskom board chairperson Mpho Makwana, who left Eskom at the end of October, revealed previously that there were issues among the workforce including low morale, lack of skills in some critical areas, leadership quality and instability, lack of trust, operating in a climate of fear, crisis fatigue and burnout.
Eskom announced in October that plans that have been put in motion to tackle the country’s longstanding energy crisis were beginning to pay off.
Electricity Minister Kgosientsho Ramokgopa confirmed this during a media briefing about the implementation of the energy action plan.
During the briefing, Ramokgopa stressed that Eskom’s ability to extend loadshedding suspensions was due to the efficiency of its generation units, which were producing more power than planned.
He mentioned that the increased adoption of rooftop solar had reduced grid demand, with an estimated 4 500MW of rooftop solar installations, nearly double that of 2022.
