South Africa’s Eskom To Resume Daily Rolling Power Cuts

South African state power utility Eskom said on Saturday that it would resume power cuts from 5 p.m. (1500 GMT) to 10 p.m. due to loss of some generation capacity.

The power utility, which has been implementing rolling blackouts across the country in recent weeks, had only just suspended power cuts it had introduced at the beginning of this week.

“Due to a further loss of generating capacity, Stage 2 loadshedding will be implemented,” it said in a statement. “Load-shedding is likely be repeated at the same time throughout the week.”

Stage 2 is a level of power cuts on an eight-level system under which Eskom implements daily rolling power outages lasting a minimum of two hours.

Eskom supplies almost 90% of South Africa’s power needs and its ageing coal-fired power plants breakdown frequently forcing the utility to implement power cuts hurting industries and households alike.

The company has implemented scheduled power cuts on more than 30 days so far this year, more than in the same period last year when power cuts reached record levels.

Eskom said on Wednesday that none of its 15 coal stations were operating at full capacity.

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