'Imagine buying expensive electricity and not being able to access it'- SA reacts to the return of load-shedding

South Africans are preparing for a weekend in the dark after Eskom announced the return of load-shedding from Wednesday morning.

The power utility said it was forced to implement rolling blackouts after breakdowns at its power stations.

“This load-shedding is necessary due to a shortage of generation capacity following breakdowns of two more generating units during the night.

“A unit each at Kusile and Kendal power stations tripped. Delays in returning units at Kusile, Tutuka, Duvha, Lethabo and Grootvlei have contributed to supply constraints. Total breakdowns amount to 14,994MW while planned maintenance is 4,435MW of capacity as we continue with reliability maintenance.

“Three generating units are expected to return to service by this afternoon,” Eskom said.

It said it would also use this time to build up its power reserve.

“Since the weekend Eskom has used significant amounts of emergency generating reserves which have been depleted and need to be replenished. Eskom will use this period of load-shedding to replenish emergency generation reserves.”

The news was met with outrage and frustration online, with many slamming the state-owned power utility.

The words “load-shedding”, “Eskom” and “stage 2" topped the Twitter trends list as many weighed in.