DD Mabuza worried about racial tone when discussing Eskom problems timeslive.co.za - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from timeslive.co.za Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Eskom said its emergency generation reserves have been used extensively in the past several days to avoid having to enforce load-shedding during the day
Load shedding will be increased to stage 4 from 14:00 this afternoon until 22:00 tonight.
From 22:00, South Africa will return to stage 2.
Stage 4 is necessary due to additional breakdowns of a unit at Medupi and two units at Duvha Power Station, together with the high winter demand, Eskom said.
Remaining emergency generation reserves have been depleted and must be restored. These emergency reserves are required to respond to further emergencies in order to maintain the stability of the national grid.
Emergency generation typically involves using open-cycle gas turbines, which run on diesel. It is a very expensive way to generate power.
Breakdowns currently total 15 087 MW of capacity, while planned maintenance is 1 273 MW of capacity.