South Africa’s electricity public utility apologizes for rolling blackouts

South African electricity public utility Eskom apologized for continued rolling blackouts in the country Tuesday.

Andre de Ruyter, CEO of Eskom, also announced that load shedding will be reduced to stage three from stage four.

“We understand this is a huge inconvenience to the country, we apologize for the negative impact this had had not only on the business industry but also on those students who are currently writing matric exams,” de Ruyter told media.

The CEO said stage four will be downgraded to stage three which will last until Friday. After maintenance has been completed on several units, load shedding will cease on Saturday morning.

Power outages started last month. Eskom escalated load shedding from stage two to stage four due to unplanned breakdowns this week.

Eskom implements load shedding due to high demand or urgent maintenance at certain power stations.

Stage two load shedding means that up to 2000MW of capacity needs to be shed. Consumers can expect to be shed up to six times over a four-day period for two hours at a time.

During Stage four load shedding, consumers can expect to be shed up to 12 times over a four-day period.

These blackouts exerted devastating effects on small businesses and the overall economy.

CEO of Business Unity South Africa, Cas Coovadia, said “economic impact” of load shedding was dire.

“New capacity must urgently be added to the grid,” he said, “We call on the president and his cabinet to demonstrate decisiveness in this crisis. The president must demonstrate to the nation that government is doing everything in its power to address this crisis.”