South Africa’s Eskom escalates power cuts to preserve diesel

South Africa’s state power utility Eskom said on Friday it would escalate power cuts to stage 2 from 11 a.m. local time (0900 GMT) until 5 a.m. on Monday to preserve its diesel reserves.

The utility, which is struggling with a fleet of ageing and poorly maintained coal-fired power stations, said it had lost multiple generation units at its power stations.

Stage 2 power cuts would last until 5 a.m. on Monday. Stage 2 cuts starting at 11 a.m. on Friday. to more than 17,000 MW of its roughly 46,000

Eskom has been implementing rolling blackouts, known locally as load-shedding, to prevent a total collapse of the national grid when it cannot meet demand.