JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) -South African utility Eskom said it would resume power cuts from 1700 to 2200 local time (1500 GMT to 2000 GMT) on Friday, but at a lower level than announced earlier in the day because of a recovery in generation capacity.
Eskom will implement “Stage 1” scheduled outages, which require up to 1,000 megawatts to be shed from the national grid, as opposed to the “Stage 2” outages it earlier said were planned.
It implemented “Stage 2” power cuts from Monday to Thursday because of faults at its coal-fired power stations.
Eskom said in a statement that its teams had returned a generating unit to service at the Kusile and Majuba coal plants and that there was now a low probability of outages over the weekend when electricity demand is usually lower.
The state-owned company’s struggles to power Africa’s most industrialised nation are a major constraint on economic growth.
Eskom said this week that the power outlook was highly uncertain over the southern hemisphere winter.
(Reporting by Alexander Winning in Johannesburg and Bhargav Acharya in Bengaluru, Editing by Louise Heavens)
