Power cuts suspended

Eskom has announced that it suspended the stage 2 power cuts announced on Thursday five hours early, pausing load-shedding at midnight.

The state-owned power utility said this was thanks to the recovery of approximately 2,015MW of generation capacity, an expected decline in electricity demand, and sufficient emergency reserves.

“Planned maintenance continues to ensure system readiness for increased winter demand, to meet regulatory requirements and to ensure environmental compliance,” said Eskom.

“Our team remains committed to restoring approximately 6,000MW to service by next Tuesday.”

Eskom issued a media alert one minute before implementing load-shedding at 16:00 on Thursday. It said several factors led to it needing immediate power cuts yesterday afternoon.

“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,” it said.

Eskom did not disclose its current demand or how much generation capacity had gone offline in recent days.

However, on Friday, 18 April, the power utility said 8,974MW of its generation capacity was out for maintenance. This is a substantial amount of scheduled maintenance, which bodes well for winter.

Parts of South Africa have experienced inclement and rainy weather in recent days, likely contributing to the rise in demand.

Eskom last implemented overnight load-shedding on 19–20 March after five generating units went offline before and during the evening peak.

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.

The state-owned power utility has promised to give an update next week about why it could not declare the end of load-shedding after 31 March, as it had believed it would be able to.