South Africans are expected to cosy up in the dark for at least 4 – 6 hours a day starting from today until Monday.
Eskom says loadshedding stage 6 kickstarts today at midday until 5am on Monday morning.
The power utility also said it lost 5 generating units in 24 hours.
Unplanned outages are expected to reach 15, 901 Megawatts.
There are currently another 5, 822 Megawatts due to units that are out of service.
Speaking to Earthnews365, owner of a well – known butchery in the Johannesburg CBD, who wanted to remain anonymous, said this is bad news, if he doesn’t sell all his stock today (Black Friday) and this weekend.
A student, who also wanted to remain anonymous, said it means studying for exams in the dark, when she gets back to Diepsloot, where she lives.
Eskom had made promising progress, with some power units back, such as Kusile power station 1 and 3.
Koeberg nuclear power station is also back online.
While it is unclear what led to the crisis, President Ramaphosa, deployed the SA Defense Force to protect Eskom power station back in May.
Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, Minister of Electricity in the Presidency, is adamant Eskom employees should be paid Christmas bonuses, to boost morale.