High stages of power cuts will remain in effect until at least Sunday morning.

This is according to Eskom’s planned load-shedding schedule for the weekend. Stage 5 load-shedding will continue to be implemented until 05:00 tomorrow, whereafter it will be reduced to stage 4.

Stage 4 load-shedding will be in effect until 05:00 on Sunday morning. It will then be reduced to stage 2 until 05:00 on Monday morning.

#POWERALERT1

Stage 4 loadshedding will be implemented from 05:00 on Saturday morning and be reduced to Stage 2 on Sunday pic.twitter.com/LlKirENkk0

— Eskom Hld SOC Ltd (@Eskom_SA) December 9, 2022

The power utility says it currently has 5 901MW on planned maintenance, while a further 15 394MW is unavailable due to breakdowns.

Eskom also provided an update on the planned maintenance of unit one at Koeberg Power Station.

“The refuelling and maintenance outage starting on Saturday morning, as well as the long-term operation project of unit one of the Koeberg Nuclear Power Station, along with the chimney failure during October that has forced three generation units offline at Kusile Power Station, will further reduce available generation capacity and exacerbate the occurrence of load-shedding during the next six to 12 months.”

Also read: Watch: Forget about a blackout; it won’t happen, says Eskom expert