Eskom has confirmed that South Africans face escalated load shedding from 2pm Friday with the likelihood of power cuts being extended beyond 6:00 on Saturday morning.

Stage 4 load shedding would be implemented nationwide from 2pm on Friday until 6 am Saturday, Eskom Deputy spokesperson Dikatso Mothae told Daily Maverick on Friday morning.

She said that South Africans had previously experienced stage 4 load shedding - which allows for up to 4000 MW of the national load to be shed - over five days in March this year.

And, it is "likely" that there will be more load shedding during the weekend, although Eskom would not be able to confirm this till later because the system is "extremely vulnerable and volatile" - which made it difficult to make long term predictions, she said.

South Africans woke up to the announcement of Stage 2 load shedding on Friday, 6 December, after Eskom had implemented rotational power cuts the previous evening. Eskom's statement said that load shedding would be implemented from 9am Friday until 6am Saturday.

This time round, the Eskom statement claimed that load shedding has returned due to the "low levels of reliability" from their generating plant and their inability...