South Africans had to contend with stage 4 load-shedding for most of the day on Tuesday. Stage 4 was lowered to stage 3 at 8pm, and stage 3 was downgraded to stage 2 at 9pm. 

In a power status update on Tuesday evening, Eskom said it would not be lowering the load-shedding status any further.

Stage 2 cuts - which allow for up to 2 000MW to be shed from the national grid - are expected to last until 11pm on Wednesday.

Rotational power cuts are likely to continue for the remainder of the week, as Eskom continues to battle severe capacity constraints despite returning some units to operation on Tuesday. 

Eskom said on Tuesday evening that emergency response teams were continuing to monitor the power system, with the aim of reducing unplanned outages to below 9 500MW. If breakdowns dip below this figure, it said, it may not have to implement load-shedding next week. 

On Tuesday morning, in a separate power update, Eskom said that breakdowns were at 15 200MW. It did not update this figure on Tuesday evening, 

President Cyril Ramaphosa, in a statement on Monday, said that public anger over the "devastating" power cuts was understandable. The president has since cut short an official visit to Egypt to return to South Africa and is set to meet with Eskom leadership on Wednesday. 

Fin24