JOHANNESBURG – South Africa’s struggling power firm Eskom implemented controlled power cuts on Friday for the second day in a row, as unplanned outages of some generating units put the power system under strain.
State-run Eskom said it would rotationally shed up to 2,000 megawatts of power from the grid from 0900 local time (0700 GMT), likely until 2200 local time (2000 GMT).
On Thursday it shed 1,000 megawatts nationwide.
Eskom has been battling to recover from a severe financial crisis, compounded by coal shortages and poor power station performance.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has made reforming Eskom a priority since taking office in February, but he has been hampered by fiscal constraints and infighting in the ruling African National Congress.
Eskom said on Wednesday that it expected to make a loss before tax of more than 11.2 billion rand ($820 million) in the current financial year. [nL8N1Y322W]
($1 = 13.6629 rand)(Reuters)