South Africans were granted four days of uninterrupted power supply before Eskom announced this morning that Stage 2 loadshedding would be in place from 14:00 on Wednesday.

Loadshedding is expected to continue until 05:00 on Saturday as Eskom scrambles to once again deal with supply constraints.

“Regretfully, due to the ongoing insufficient generation capacity and the loss of a unit each at Medupi, Duvha and Kendal power stations this morning, Stage 2 loadshedding will be implemented from 14:00 today until 05:00 on Saturday 20 November,” the utility wrote.

What makes this announcement particularly annoying is the fact that Eskom hosted an update about the state of the current power system this morning. During that stream Eskom chief executive officer Andre de Ruyter warned that the power system was constrained and said that some generating units were being brought offline over the weekend for maintenance.

At no point, however, did de Ruyter declare that loadshedding was scheduled to happen today.

The fact that the CEO of Eskom was seemingly unaware that loadshedding was anticipated for today and the rest of the week is mighty concerning.

One could argue that the system became further constrained during that livestream but the optics look terrible for the CEO, especially as calls for his firing grow louder.

As always, we advise checking out the Eskom loadshedding site and Eskomsepush on mobile to keep up to date with what times your area will be affected and when to charge necessary devices for the coming week.