"Despite Eskom’s best efforts to return additional generation units to service after the breakdowns that occurred during the week, we have not made sufficient progress to enable us to suspend load-shedding," Eskom said in a statement late on Sunday evening. 

"Eskom wishes to assure the public that implementing load-shedding is the last resort in order to protect the national grid," it said.

In order to limit the impact of load-shedding on the morning traffic hour peak, Eskom would start implementing stage two load-shedding as of 9am on Monday. This would continue until 10pm. Implementing load-shedding on Monday was also necessary to replenish the emergency generation reserves to better prepare for the week.

On Saturday night, after the peak demand period, Eskom teams successfully returned to service one unit at the Kriel power station, adding 475MW to the grid. The return of a generation unit each at Tutuka and Kriel power stations had been delayed, contributing to the supply constraints.

During the coming week, Eskom would continue to experience supply constraints. Due to the much colder weather, demand for electricity had also risen significantly.

"We therefore urge the public to continue assisting us in managing consumption in order to reduce the impact of the supply constraints. With your help Eskom can recover from this much quicker," the statement said.

African News Agency