There was a good chance that South Africans would experience further power cuts on Tuesday, power utility Eskom said.

“The grid is exceptionally tight. There is a medium to high chance of load shedding today [Tuesday] if we do see further technical challenges developing,” spokesman Andrew Etzinger said.

He said 25 percent of Eskom’s generator capacity was not operational due to technical problems. He could not confirm or deny whether the power utility would need to implement stage three of power cuts.

“We will implement the stage necessary in order to protect the grid. We won’t go to stage three unless it is absolutely necessary.”
Eskom on Monday announced on Twitter that it had moved its power cuts from stage one to two.

“Load shedding has moved from stage 1 to stage 2 as of 3pm,” it tweeted.
Power cuts would continue until 10pm, it said at the time.

Stage one allows for up to 1000MW of the national load to be shed, stage two for up to 2000MW, and stage three for up to 4000MW.

It said the power system was severely constrained due to unforeseen technical problems at power stations. SAPA