Stage two of rolling power cuts have ended on Sunday, with the power system to be under “severe pressure” over the coming week, Eskom said.

“Eskom stopped stage 2 load shedding at 10.10pm on 8 February 2015 [Sunday],” the parastatal said in a statement.

“It is important to note that restoration of power takes longer in some areas.”

Eskom thanked all their customers who reduced their energy consumption, and apologised for the inconvenience to affected customers.

“The system will continue to be under severe pressure over the coming week, so the risk of load shedding remains high,” Eskom said.

“There is a shortage of generation capacity due to units that are currently out of service due to planned and unplanned maintenance.”

The focus was on returning the units that were on unplanned maintenance back on line in order to increase available capacity.

“Koeberg power station’s Unit 1 will be shut down from tomorrow (Monday) for a scheduled refuelling, inspection and maintenance outage. The unit is expected to return back to service at the end of May,” Eskom said.

“The scheduled shutdown of Koeberg Unit 1 is part of Eskom’s overall maintenance programme for its fleet of power stations.”

The company called on all South Africans to continue using electricity sparingly in order to limit the severity of power cuts. SAPA