The power utility earlier implemented load shedding from 16:00 until 23:00 due to a shortage of capacity.

The overnight cuts will give it time to marshal emergency resources, it said, which it hopes will limit load shedding in coming days. 

Eskom said that unplanned breakdowns are currently above 12 500 MW, which amounts to more than a quarter of its nominal generation capacity.

While it did not say which power stations had been impacted by unplanned breakdowns, it specified that coal handling had not been affected by wet conditions in some arts of the country. If heavy rain persists, however, it could begin to impact coal handling and further decrease generation capacity,    

The power utility recently said no load shedding was planned until March, although load shedding could be implemented if absolutely necessary, as Fin24 reported.

Meanwhile, Eskom has since announced stage two load-shedding for Friday, starting at 9am.

The embattled power utility says the load-shedding will last until at least 6am on Saturday. Eskom terminated its stage 2 rotational load-shedding at 5am Friday morning, 6 hours after the initial planned outage time.

Fin24