Load-shedding is back - again.

Eskom said on Tuesday that it would impose stage 2 rolling blackouts across the country from 1am until 6am on Wednesday morning “to accommodate matric results”.

“In order to minimise the impact of the load-shedding on South Africans, load-shedding is scheduled at night to maximise electricity availability during the working day,” said the embattled power utility in a statement.

“Owing to a loss of additional generation capacity, emergency reserves had to be extensively utilised to supplement capacity during the day. These now need to be replenished to meet tomorrow's electricity demand.”

The country’s electricity system was “constrained and unpredictable” due to breakdowns totalling 13,600MW.

“In order to give matriculants an opportunity to receive their matric results, the implementation of stage 2 load-shedding has been delayed to 1am on Wednesday," said Eskom.

BusinessLIVE reported on Monday that stage 6 load-shedding, which has happened only once before, looks set to become a more common occurrence as Eskom’s plant breakdowns remained at dangerously high levels.

Stage 2 allows for up to 2,000MW to be shed from the national grid to avoid the system becoming unstable, while stage 6 entails dropping 6,000MW from the grid.

- TimesLIVE