Urgent load shedding warning

Eskom has issued an urgent alert regarding a high risk of load shedding at short notice this evening due to several generation unit breakdowns.

Over the past 12 hours, six generation units have been taken offline, placing severe strain on the power system and requiring the use of emergency reserves.

If an additional 800MW is lost, Eskom will be compelled to implement Stage 2 load shedding at short notice.

“Efforts are underway to return seven generation units to service between the evening peak and Tuesday evening,” Eskom said.

“Our teams are closely monitoring the situation, and further updates will be provided at 22h00 or earlier if necessary.”

Load shedding has made an unwelcome return to South Africa in 2025, with Eskom having to initiate rolling blackouts several times since February.

The latest round of rotating power cuts was on 19 March, when stage 2 load shedding was implemented,

This followed the implementation of stage 4 and stage 6 load shedding in February and stage 3 load shedding in early March.

While Eskom has significantly reduced load shedding and managed to keep it at bay for almost a full year, a series of unit failures has seen outages return.

Eskom and the energy department have apologised for the return of load shedding but have reminded the country that the grid is still under pressure and operates on a fine edge.

Any setbacks, such as the sudden loss of units, increase the chance that load shedding will return,

This is unlikely to change until the grid’s capacity is boosted to cover growing demand.

A recent study by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research showed that the outages have cost the country dearly, even when reduced.

While load shedding is apparently becoming more frequent again, it should be noted that progress is being made in putting the outages to rest.

Eskom recently added 800MW to the grid with another unit at Kusile Power Stations going live.

Notably, had this 800MW not been added to the grid, it is likely that load shedding would have already been in effect.