Australia's Energy Minister Chris Bowen has urged citizents of New South Wales, which is home to over 8.166 million people, to switch off their lights amid an energy crisis.
He said the citizens should not use electricity for two hours every evening if they "have a choice", reports BBC.
"If you have a choice about when to run certain items, don't run them from 6pm to 8pm [in the evening]," he said during a televised media conference in Canberra.
Bowen added he was "confident" that blackouts could be avoided.
To minimise the stress on the system, AEMO is requesting consumers in New South Wales to temporarily reduce their energy usage, where safe to do so. pic.twitter.com/t87JgvObGA
— AEMO (@AEMO_Energy) June 15, 2022
New South Wales is a state which includes several large cities, including Sydney.
It comes after Australia's main wholesale electricity market was suspended because of a surge in prices.
More than three-quarters of the nation's electricity is generated using coal, the BBC reported.
Over the past week, Australia has been affected by disruptions to coal supplies, outages at several coal-fired power plants, and soaring global energy prices.