Stage two rolling power cuts will be implemented on Friday morning, power utility Eskom said.

The power outages would be from 8am until 10pm, Eskom said on its official Twitter account.

Stage three power cuts were implemented on Thursday from 4pm to around 11pm.

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

On Thursday, Eskom moved to stage three power cuts which lasted until 11pm.

“This was due to a further shortage of generation capacity as additional units have had to be taken out of service for unplanned maintenance caused by technical faults.”

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

Thursday was the first time this year that Eskom has resorted to stage three rolling blackouts.

On Wednesday, the power utility said unit 3 at its Majuba power station had an ash conveyer belt which was stuck, and at Duvha, unit 2 tripped on Tuesday night. SAPA