"Eskom will reduce load-shedding to stage 3 starting at 8am until 10pm tomorrow," the power utility said.

"In order to replenish the emergency generation reserves, load-shedding will then continue into the weekend. The system remains unreliable and vulnerable."

The company has managed to restore one generation unit each at Camden, Matla, Majuba and the Tutuka Power Stations but two other units went down while it was fixing those four.

Eskom on Thursday implemented stage 4 load-shedding as it suffered a raft of breakdowns amid cold winter weather across the country.

The management of the utility confirmed on Wednesday that stage 3 load-shedding would remain a reality for South Africans for at least another 18 months as the company struggles with a persistent capacity shortfall of some 11,000 megawatt. 

The company also confirmed that its debt burden has in recent months increased further to R488 billion and that it was using huge cash allocations from the state to service its debt.

Answering questions from members of Parliament (MPs) in the National Council of Provinces on Thursday, Deputy President David Mabuza apologised to the country for the disruption load-shedding was causing but said the eventual completion of the Medupi and Kusile power plants should bring relief, along with the procurement of another 2,000 megawatts of renewable energy.

African News Agency