South Africa’s power company Eskom has announced load shedding, or scheduled blackouts, that will last until Friday.

The state-owned electricity provider said this would be implemented from 10am on Wednesday until 10pm on Friday.

It attributed this to “further breakdowns” of two power generating units as well as delays in returning others to service.

“The emergency generation reserves have been used extensively in the past days to avoid load shedding during the day. This has resulted in these being depleted, reducing available capacity.

It is, therefore, necessary to implement load shedding continuously until Friday 22:00 in order to replenish the emergency reserves,” it said in a statement on Wednesday.

Poor maintenance, rising costs, falling revenues, crumbling infrastructure, corruption and mismanagement have in the past been blamed for South Africa’s energy crisis.

On Tuesday, Eskom said that the limited supply of electricity would persist through the high winter period, increasing the likelihood of further blackouts.

The utility firm has appealed to the public to reduce their electricity consumption during the period.