Eskom warns of possible stage 6 load shedding

Eskom implemented stage 4 of the rolling power cuts from Wednesday until Friday after a few more units tripped at three power stations on Tuesday night. 

The utility's COO Jan Oberholzer says they are having to burn nine million litres of diesel each day - just to support the system. 

Hundreds of tankers are being used to deliver the fuel to power stations. 

"Between Ankerlig and Gourikwa, we are using nine million litres of diesel a day to support the system." 

READ: Eskom ramps up load shedding to stage 4

"Now at Gourikwa, if you take the nine million litres and you do your own calculations, you'll see that we are actually using a lot of money currently to just top up from an emergency point of view the capacity of the system. Which obviously not sustainable." 

Oberholzer warns that if they run out of diesel, water or other emergency resources, we could be faced with stage 6 power cuts. 

"The combined effect would be a further six stages of load shedding. So it is critically important to balance these emergency resources together with load shedding to ensure we manage the power system safely while keeping the stage of load shedding as low as possible."