Eskom says it plans to embark on a massive maintenance drive, in an effort to improve the performance and reliability of its power generating units ahead of the expected peak winter demand.
The power utility has described it as a "maintenance festival", which has been described as a rather interesting choice of words by observers.
Eskom says 64% of its current base load power stations are past their midlife, requiring longer outages and extended restoration time than planned.
It says midlife refurbishments or replacement being carried timeously reduce equipment failures.
The long weekend's "maintenance festival" is expected to lead to load shedding.
