Eskom has warned of the likelihood of load-shedding on Saturday evening and Sunday due to multiple generation unit trips overnight.

It said it had lost seven generation units at four power stations — Duvha, Tutuka, Kriel and Grootvlei — due to various technical faults.   

“The root causes of these incidents are being investigated and corrective measures to be implemented.

“This has caused additional strain on our reserve capacity. In order to rebuild our emergency reserves for the coming week, there is therefore an increased probability of implementing load-shedding tonight,” the power utility said.

It added that the load-shedding might continue throughout the weekend.

“Eskom is currently utilising expensive emergency generation reserves to supplement supply, which is unsustainable. The system remains constrained, vulnerable and unpredictable.

“Unplanned breakdowns or outages were at 11,868MW as at 10:50 this morning and planned maintenance outages are at 5,430MW.”

Eskom has not implemented load-shedding since February 22.