TSHWANE - Tshwane residents have been warned to brace themselves for prolonged outages, as the city's infrastructure is struggling to cope with the impact of Stage 6 load shedding.
Eskom ramped up its power cuts during the week until further notice.
The city's Member of the Mayoral Committee (MMC) for Utilities, Themba Fosi, said the latest bout of load shedding was damaging the metro's electricity network.
"Higher levels of load shedding have a negative effect on our electricity network and infrastructure, and it also affects our ability to attend to outages.
“Our networks were never designed for load shedding and continuously turning the electricity network on and off has a major impact on the condition of our network infrastructure."
Residents are hit with a double blow, as water supply in the capital has also reached critically low levels.
The metro's Selby Bokaba said reservoirs were not filling up fast enough due to an increased water demand.
"Rand Water and the City of Tshwane have noticed an increase in water demand as a result of hot temperatures and high water consumption.
“This has put a strain on the City of Tshwane and Rand Water’s supply systems."