The power grid continued to be constrained on Wednesday and power cuts were possible, Eskom warned.

"The system remains extremely constrained today but stable. Should anything unexpected happen, we may need to go into load shedding," Eskom's media desk said in an e-mail.

The power utility implemented stage one load shedding on January 9, due to high electricity demand and the unavailability of some of its generating units.

Stage one allows for up to 1 000 MW of the national load to be shed, stage two for up to 2 000 MW, and stage three for up to 4 000 MW.

Last Thursday, Eskom CEO Tshediso Matona said government shared responsibility for the country's power problems as it dealt with policy. This included electricity prices set by the National Energy Regulator of South Africa.

Matona reiterated that the country's power supply would remain severely constrained in the coming months while Eskom dealt with its maintenance backlog.

He said maintenance had been neglected in recent years and at times was deferred to keep the lights on.

In February, 900 MW would be taken off the grid when one of the Koeberg nuclear power station's units is scheduled to undergo maintenance.