Eskom has announced that power cuts will be lowered from stage 2 to stage 1 due to lower demand for electricity.

This will come into effect at 10pm on Friday night and will continue until 5am on Monday morning.

The power utility said that while the return to service of generation units had been slow, it was now possible to reduce the stage of power cuts during the weekend.

The latest round of blackouts was implemented on Tuesday afternoon due to a shortage of generation capacity owing to delays in returning generators to service, as well as breakdowns of nine generators.