South Africa is still currently on track for Stage 3 load-shedding between 17:00 and 22:00 on Tuesday as a lack of capacity has left the country with evening power cuts for the rest of the week.

Eskom had initially said there would Stage 3 load-shedding on Monday night as well, but had to escalate to Stage 4 after a unit tripped at Kusile power station, taking 720MW of generating capacity with it.

The utility still maintains that there will be Stage 2 load-shedding from 17:00 and 22:00 every evening from Wednesday onwards for the rest of the week.

"Eskom will update the public as soon as any changes be necessary," it said. 

Eskom is dealing with a number of breakdowns at power stations across the country. While it has cut down on maintenance, as of Monday afternoon there was nearly 2 000 MW of capacity out due to planned work. Total unplanned capacity out was over 17 000 MW on Monday afternoon due to breakdowns.

The utility said at a briefing on Monday that over 6 000 MW of capacity was at risk.

In the same briefing, CEO Andre de Ruyter said that Eskom can cope with demand in the day, but it is during the "winter" evening peaks, that it experiences a shortfall.

"This type of [evening] load-shedding can have less of an impact on business."

He acknowledged that Eskom’s performance has been disappointing, adding that the utility was embracing  "extraordinary measures" to improve output.