By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
State owned power utility Eskom has announced that Stage 2 loadshedding will be implemented from 4pm today on Thursday until 5am on Friday.
The last time Eskom implemented loadsheding was on 19 March this year.
“Despite significant progress in our generation recovery efforts, higher-than-expected electricity demand, the loss of generation units, and extensive planned maintenance have placed strain on the system.
“Given these ongoing constraints, we urge the public to use electricity sparingly to help reduce pressure on the grid,” Eskom said in a statement.
Eskom did not disclose its current demand or how much generation capacity has gone offline in recent days.
However, in a statement on Friday, 18 April, the power utility said a relatively high amount — 8,974MW — of its generation capacity was under planned maintenance.
Parts of South Africa have experienced inclement and rainy weather in recent days, likely contributing to the rise in demand.
The utility has experienced a sudden downturn in reliability this year after providing South Africa an over 300-day reprieve from rotational power cuts since April 2024.
Eskom announced the return of stage 3 load-shedding on 31 January 2025, but assured it was a temporary setback.
Eskom board chair Mteto Nyati went on national TV and said he was confident that Eskom would have not implement loadshedding again from the end of March.
“We had this plan. This was a two-year plan which was adopted in March 2023. We have been implementing that plan, “Nyati said in February.
“We are now like two or three months away from the end of those two years. End of March 2025, that’s when the plan should have been executed,” he said.