Years of deferred maintenance and delays in the commissioning of new power stations Medupi and Kusile have ensured that South Africa runs an almost daily risk of being plunged into load shedding.
On Wednesday, Eskom announced that it would implement stage four load shedding for the first time since September 2020, caused by breakdowns of 15 087 MW and 1 273 MW being unavailable because of planned maintenance.