Eskom shed close to 7 000 MW, associated with Stage 7, from the grid on Monday evening.

In his daily system updates, Eskom spokesperson Sikonathi Mantshantsha tweeted that 6 770 MW were shed on Monday evening.

At the time, Eskom was officially implementing Stage 6 load-shedding, which means 6 000 MW is shed from the grid – or South Africans would be without power for six hours of the day.

The higher the load-shedding stage – the more frequently customers will experience power outages.

Eskom has since downgraded load-shedding to Stage 5 – which means 5 000 MW will be shed from the grid.

In the meantime, the power utility has issued three new procurement programmes targeting different energy suppliers who could possibly get 1 000 MW flowing to the grid urgently. Eskom is optimistic it will have the first supply agreement signed this week.